tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13292657417568148472018-10-12T09:13:13.118+01:00A Vested InterestJohn Chapmanhttps://plus.google.com/104152408681286149443noreply@blogger.comBlogger28125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1329265741756814847.post-74510951168976681482018-09-06T10:49:00.000+01:002018-09-06T13:55:29.268+01:00If Humans Were Immortal...<h2><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1329265741756814847" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a> If humans were immortal... (Updated)</h2>Let's suppose a medical research team did discover a way of reversing old age and the effects of illness, effectively making people immortal. What should they do with their 'fix'?<br /><ol><li>Should they sell it at a huge price so that only the rich could afford it?</li><li>Should they make it freely available to everyone by using a life virus to infect everyone it comes in contact with?</li><li>Should they make it available for a small fee to anyone who wants it on condition they are sterilized first?</li><li>Should immortality be reserved for those who have proved they deserve it?</li><li>Should they hide their discovery in fear of the chaos it would cause?</li></ol>I think you'll agree that option 1 is just simply wrong. The only way it would be successful would be for the discovery to remain a top secret. Once the knowledge got out - and it would get out - those who had benefited would be universally hated and would die at the hands of a mob probably.<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-OOs8UIQsb8I/VA149fPZEBI/AAAAAAAADFg/j4PIXQzni0E/s1600/120YearsMax533x300.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-OOs8UIQsb8I/VA149fPZEBI/AAAAAAAADFg/j4PIXQzni0E/s1600/120YearsMax533x300.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>Option 2 takes away the right of people to choose. There would be some who would say that this was playing god and was just wrong. Expect riots from these people; they would be quoting a verse from Genesis:<br /><br /><ul> <em>Genesis 6:3: "And the LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years."</em> </ul>Another group would resent their lack of choice and would press for assisted suicide programs.<br />Can you see option 3 being popular? What if the 'fix' undid the sterilization. Would people pay to have this reversed once they were immortal?<br />Who chooses the 'worthy' in option 4? What if you are a worthy individual but never got a chance to prove it?<br />Would any doctor agree to option 5? Isn't the whole purpose of medicine to extend human life? Do people have the moral right to hide such a discovery?<br /><a href="http://amzn.to/V58XSY" target="_blank">A Vested Interest</a> story chooses option 2. If the story in 'A Vested Interest' were to become reality, just what would be the effect?<br /><h3>If Humans Had a lifespan of 1,000+ Years </h3><h4>What is immortality?</h4>Our book suggests a lifetime of 1729 years. That's not immortal but assumes a human will stay healthy until killed by an accident, starvation, war, an '<a href="http://jaydax.blogspot.com/2008/10/last-sound.html">Extinction Level Event</a>' (ELE) or some other overwhelming event. According to insurance tables that would happen on average in 1729 years. (Hey - did you know my Twitter name is <a href="https://twitter.com/JChapman1729" target="_blank">@JChapman1729</a>?)<br /><ul><li>Damaged tissue would be regenerated. An amputee would re-grow a limb, hair would re-grow on the bald, lost teeth would be replaced and body parts lost through surgery would be replaced. That includes contraceptive surgery! Cosmetic surgery would be stable if it was to repair physical or age damage but would reverse if it were done to change appearance.</li><li>What would happen to the population of the world? The population could be expected to soar initially putting a huge strain on the food supply and the demand for resources and energy. Many millions would starve. However, gradually the desperate 'urge' driving us to reproduce and replace ourselves would be brought under control - we would, after all, have plenty of time for that 'later' when we felt more secure. Eventually the population would be brought under control at a level a great deal higher than it is now..</li><li>Food would be scarce initially but again this would be resolved as more areas became cultivated including sea farms, 'arid' areas and underground. It's likely that new food sources would be developed including bacterial cultures, fungal sources and direct synthesis. Cellulose from plants - wheat straw, bamboo, kelp and grasses would be converted to edible food. Real <a href="https://www.blogger.com/technology.htm#culturedmeat" target="_blank">meat will be grown</a> in laborartory factories without killing the animals the initial cells came from with less enviromental impact and in a shorter time. </li><li>Water would be scarce in many areas for some time. A grid taking water from where it is plentiful to other areas would eventually be created. </li><li>The natural inclination would be to fight for food, land and resources. Initially that's exactly what would happen but we would eventually learn that cooperation produces better results.</li><li>Soldiers would think twice before fighting for any other principles - it is one thing to give up 30-40 years of life but an entirely different thing to give up 1000+ years. Those who didn't see things this way would probably not be missed!</li><li>A career would probably not be a lifetime decision. It would be changed many times. You would not want to stay in a hated job and would have plenty of time to learn new skills. The demand for education would be high as older generations go back to school to learn new skills. As far as normal K12 education was concerned the pressure would be off and there would be more time for 'fun' in school with lessons being devoted to leisure activities and non-vocational skills. K12 would become K20?</li><li>Politicians would want to remain in power for much longer, the climb up the political ladder would be much harder. Maybe we would someday elect 'reluctant politicians' who would see it as their civic duty to serve for a time rather than out of a desire for power. After all; anyone who wants to lead a country is probably the last person you should give the job to!</li><li>Premeditated crimes of violence would eventually decrease. Those inclined to violence would, over time, be eliminated from the gene pool by that very violence. Crimes of passion would no doubt continue!</li><li>The urge to move to a better place would be overwhelming - even if that meant transforming a harsh environment to make it livable. </li><li>Undersea and underground communities would be set up - anywhere there is space available. The Earth's surface might eventually become a park for leisure.</li><li>Space would be colonized; the Moon and asteroids first, followed by Mars, the satellites of other planets and finally other solar systems.</li><li>Raw materials and energy would be at a premium. Both will cause problems initially but will be solved as nuclear fusion, deep robotic mining and resources from space become available. Getting space resources using rockets would be found impractical and space elevators would be constructed.</li><li>Waste heat would become a major problem. Much of it will be recycled though.</li><li>Recycling of waste would be a major industry.</li><li>Concerns about global warming would soar for a while, then prove unfounded as people realize that sea levels just are not rising abnormally and temperatures start to fall around 2040 as we enter the next ice age. (Try reading Michael Crichton's 'State of Fear'). The drive to reduce carbon emissions would continue though since we wouldn't be able to burn fossil fuels needed as raw materials.</li><li>Technology will continue to develop at an ever faster rate. Computers and nanotechnology especially. Look forward to a personal computer you can talk to, carry with you, display within your eyes and hear through your teeth!</li><li>The average intelligence of the population would increase slowly. A surprising number of 'Darwin Award' candidates would fail to breed.</li><li>Most medical staff apart from those dealing with accidents and research would be out of a job. An end perhaps to the ridiculous hours they work?</li><li>Retirement and pensions would be a thing of the past. The working week would be shorter and holidays longer.</li><li>There would be less 'haste' in everyday life. You now have 'plenty of time'.</li><li>Leisure demand would soar. A huge number of people would be employed by it.</li><li>Drug companies would mostly convert to biotechnology, go out of business or convert to supplying chemical resources and producing food.</li><li>People would have an increased awareness of natural disasters and put more energy into averting them.</li><li>Languages would be less of a problem, people would have the time to learn them and eventually we could see a common language developing from bits of all.</li><li>Euthanasia centers would be accepted. Who wants to live a long and unhappy life?</li><li>We would run out of fossil fuels and resort to biotechnology, nanotechnology and asteroid mining to replace them. Biofuels from products such as corn would prove to be a dead end since the raw materials would be needed to produce food. Algae farming would become important.</li></ul><h3>Is This Real?</h3><h2><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1329265741756814847" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></h2><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1329265741756814847" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a>Is it possible? According to Aubrey de Grey, Chief Science Officer of the&nbsp;<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SENS_Research_Foundation" title="SENS Research Foundation" wotsearchprocessed="true">SENS Research Foundation</a>, an organisation dedicated to ending ageing, the first person to live to 1,000 is probably alive now. Watch his <a href="http://www.ted.com/talks/aubrey_de_grey_says_we_can_avoid_aging.html">TED</a> talk on this subject or his interview with '<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b04675z2/hardtalk-aubrey-de-grey-chief-science-officer-and-cofounder-of-the-sens-foundation" target="_blank">Hardtalk</a>' at the BBC.<br /><h3>Will this happen soon?&nbsp;</h3>It's already starting to take place. In 2015 a biotech company used genetic engineering to treat a woman, Liz Parrish. As a result her telomeres increased in length by 9%. That's equivalent to reversing 20 years of aging. Find out more at <a href="https://bioviva-science.com/blog/liz-parrish-bioviva/" target="_blank">Bioviva</a>.&nbsp;On March 9th 2015 a document was published detailing research into '<span style="color: #333333; font-family: &quot;georgia&quot; , &quot;times new roman&quot; , serif;">Senolytics' You can read the technical medical document <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/acel.12344/pdf" target="_blank">here</a> or read a simpler version at <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/senolytics-scientists-identify-new-drug-that-slows-the-aging-process-and-could-dramatically-increase-our-life-expectancy-10097438.html" target="_blank">The Independent</a></span><br /><table border="2" style="width: 90%px;"><tbody><tr> <td><table border="0" cellpadding="5" style="width: 100%px;"><tbody><tr> <td align="left" valign="middle">If this post has helped or entertained, will you help us? Download a FREE copy of our book 'Immortality Gene' from <a href="http://smarturl.it/avi" target="_blank">http://smarturl.it/avi</a><br />Even if you never read it (but we hope you will) - it will help our rankings. </td><td valign="middle" width="160"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-QKHrmutLvmo/U-S-5EKCl6I/AAAAAAAACz8/XYHkwbBGqD0/s1600/bluearrowpointleft.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Look - a FREE e-book" border="0" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-QKHrmutLvmo/U-S-5EKCl6I/AAAAAAAACz8/XYHkwbBGqD0/s1600/bluearrowpointleft.png" title="Call to action" /></a></div></td> </tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table><h3>And your views...?</h3><h2><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1329265741756814847" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></h2><div>Have I answered the question "What if humans were immortal?"<br />Now it's your turn. Please use the comments to tell us what you think will happen. Would 'immortality' be a blessing, a curse or somewhere in between?<br /><h4>Want more information? Check out these related 'immortality gene' sites:</h4><a href="http://science.sciencemag.org/content/279/5348/177" target="_blank">Immortality Gene Discovered | Science&nbsp;</a><br /><a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn3786-stem-cell-immortality-gene-found/" target="_blank">Stem cell 'immortality' gene found | New Scientist</a><br /><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biological_immortality" target="_blank">Biological immortality - Wikipedia</a><br /><a href="https://genetics.thetech.org/ask-a-geneticist/bioengineering-immortality" target="_blank">Bioengineering immortality - Understanding Genetics - TheTech.org</a><br /><a href="https://www.livescience.com/6967-hang-25-year-wait-immortality.html" target="_blank">Hang in There: The 25-Year Wait for Immortality - Live Science</a><br /><a href="https://www.genomicseducation.hee.nhs.uk/news/item/113-immortality-regenerative-medicine-and-the-origin-of-death+" target="_blank">Immortality, Regenerative Medicine, and the Origin of Death - UK NHS</a><br /><a href="http://senescence.info/immortal_society.html" target="_blank">Immortality and Society: The Consequences of Ending Aging - Senescence.info</a></div>John Chapmanhttps://plus.google.com/104152408681286149443noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1329265741756814847.post-79551478522905156662018-04-22T17:10:00.000+01:002018-04-22T17:10:49.533+01:00No wonder 'free' is synonymous with 'valueless'Browsing the free Sci-Fi books at Smashwords I came across a book which looked interesting, apparently about genetic manipulation of DNA producing monstrous people. Since genetic manipulation is the subject of my book series, I downloaded it and started reading.<br /><br />The first page put me off and by the time I got to page seven that was enough. I should have known better; here's the book's description:<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 17.6000003814697px;">Today we use viruses to change people’s genetics to fix that which evolution tossed for them at the moment of creation the moment two reproductive cells came together to make a whole cell exploding with life and promise These things can improve a life immensely But men are never satisfied, never ever satisfied with Just a little of a good thing no they must have control they want everything</span></blockquote>Notice the punctuation? The absence of periods at the end of sentences, missing commas, capitals in the middle and that last bit?<br /><br />The content of the book was just the same. You could make out what the author wanted to say but, without sticking to any rules of grammar, it was very hard to read. On the first page of the story I found:<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 17.6000003814697px;"><span style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">'the contracts id signed would get me severe penalties jail time at the very least'</span></span></blockquote><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , serif;"><span style="line-height: 17.6000003814697px;">Ignoring the 'id', lack of a semicolon or a period, I decided it was obviously written in first person viewpoint. A few pages later the viewpoint changed to third person omnipotent. By that time, I had learnt that the hero was 'Bill' or sometimes 'bill', that the author didn't always close speech marks, that he didn't know the difference between 'loose' and 'lose' and that he didn't start speech with a capital letter or use any punctuation at its end.&nbsp;</span></span><br /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 17.600000381469727px;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , serif;"><span style="line-height: 17.6000003814697px;">I read no further. I didn't leave a review or comment since I had read so little. Neither am I going to identify the book or the author. I'm sure you'll be able to find it if you are interested enough. I see the author has now raised the price to $3.00 - I wish him good luck with that!</span></span><br /><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , serif;"><span style="line-height: 17.6000003814697px;">How, in this day and age, can a book be put out with so many grammar errors? Most word processors will draw attention to errors like this. MS Word, by far the most common word processor, certainly will. Surely the author is aware of his grammar inadequacy? Wouldn't you think he would have it checked?</span></span><br /><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , serif;"><span style="line-height: 17.6000003814697px;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , serif; line-height: 17.6000003814697px;">If this book's author does, by any chance, read this - please - invest in a grammar checker. Try Grammarly.com, Autocrit.com or Ginger.com. All&nbsp; offer free trials</span><br /><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , serif; line-height: 17.6000003814697px;"><br /></span><h4><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , serif; line-height: 17.6000003814697px;">Postscript</span></h4><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , serif; line-height: 17.6000003814697px;">I delayed three years before making this post to give the author concerned time to fix things. But - no change and the book is now available elsewhere, mostly as the very worst form of ebook - a PDF. I still have not left a review as I didn't continue reading it and can't comment on the story.</span><br /><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , serif; line-height: 17.6000003814697px;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , serif; line-height: 17.6000003814697px;">Please - don't base your view on independent publishing on books like this. There are many excellent indie books but many are drowning in a sea of dross.</span><br /><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , serif; line-height: 17.6000003814697px;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , serif; line-height: 17.6000003814697px;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 17.600000381469727px;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot; , serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 17.600000381469727px;"><br /></span>John Chapmanhttps://plus.google.com/104152408681286149443noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1329265741756814847.post-70996227507600076272017-02-18T20:42:00.000+00:002017-02-18T20:45:55.646+00:00The Message<h2 style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.701961);">Can You Decode the 'Stones, Stars and Solutions' Document?</h2><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ifvKQFqG5l8/WKiigHiV1SI/AAAAAAAAFF4/sbvOk7IgqMkAbIWYuIAPcgNy4f2INuBxACLcB/s1600/SSSpromotion600x300%25283%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="160" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ifvKQFqG5l8/WKiigHiV1SI/AAAAAAAAFF4/sbvOk7IgqMkAbIWYuIAPcgNy4f2INuBxACLcB/s320/SSSpromotion600x300%25283%2529.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>In the Triplet Family an impossible document has been passed down through the generations since 1099 when it was captured during the sack of Jerusalem in the first Crusade. The Triplet family are quite sure it is genuine and not a modern creation.<br /><br />It's impossible because it contains languages from all over the world and dates from a time when these civilizations didn't know about each other.<br /><br />We've translated the words for you:<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-LZrvzX3SFIQ/WKilCWo0k9I/AAAAAAAAFGE/6OekxsYHPOw_iFQ-WXoBvVVrEP23pRaPQCLcB/s1600/Gridtext.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="282" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-LZrvzX3SFIQ/WKilCWo0k9I/AAAAAAAAFGE/6OekxsYHPOw_iFQ-WXoBvVVrEP23pRaPQCLcB/s400/Gridtext.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><br />(There's a bigger version shown below which may be easier to read)<br /><br />The original was supposed to be written on thin sheets of gold but it was copied onto parchment. It consists of 4199 words written in a total of 13 languages.<br /><br />The languages used are from all over the world and are:<br /><ul><li>Hieroglyphs - Egyptian 3200 BCE – 400 CE deciphered 1820</li><li>Cuneiform - Sumerian 3000 BCE - 100 CE deciphered 1836</li><li>Old Chinese - Chinese 1200 BCE - 300 BCE</li><li>Phoenician - Now Lebanon &amp; Syria 1000 BCE - 250 BCE</li><li>Latin - Roman 650 BCE onwards</li><li>Greek - Greece 800 BCE onwards</li><li>Hebrew - Israel 2000 BCE onwards</li><li>Middle Aramaic - Arabia 200 CE - 1200 CE</li><li>Mayan - Guatemala &amp; Belize 200 BCE - 1700 CE deciphered 1980</li><li>Tibetan - Tibet 650 CE onwards</li><li>Punic - Tunisia (Carthage) 900 BCE - 300 CE</li><li>Sanskrit (Brahmi) - India 300 BCE - 200 CE deciphered</li><li>An unknown language.</li></ul><br /><br />The message appears to be written in blocks of 323 words. The words written in known languages are repeated in each block but apparently in a random order and different languages are used. The words written in the unknown language do not appear to be repeated.<br /><br />The same two hieroglyph words are written in each 323 word block.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-JPfomXFKBvY/WKimS85YsII/AAAAAAAAFGQ/5EwBMWtO0bouPl4rfhjlm-tnBu0LNtE1wCLcB/s1600/Anubis.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-JPfomXFKBvY/WKimS85YsII/AAAAAAAAFGQ/5EwBMWtO0bouPl4rfhjlm-tnBu0LNtE1wCLcB/s1600/Anubis.jpg" /></a></div>&nbsp;this one is translated as Anubis<br /><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-oYwuWDcD-dc/WKine2E1xlI/AAAAAAAAFGc/NFKw8Hg4kxcBo545nBJgP9flx8t6E0w-QCLcB/s1600/OrderHieroglyph.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-oYwuWDcD-dc/WKine2E1xlI/AAAAAAAAFGc/NFKw8Hg4kxcBo545nBJgP9flx8t6E0w-QCLcB/s1600/OrderHieroglyph.gif" /></a></div>and this one is Order.<br /><br /><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-YWgeglBxgNo/WKioDIE_jOI/AAAAAAAAFGk/6I9D5kIIS7MtiX8dw_jKDznOuhsav5n9QCLcB/s1600/TripletTree%255B1%255D.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-YWgeglBxgNo/WKioDIE_jOI/AAAAAAAAFGk/6I9D5kIIS7MtiX8dw_jKDznOuhsav5n9QCLcB/s1600/TripletTree%255B1%255D.png" /></a></div>This symbol is used as a word three times in each 323 block of text. They occur in the same positions in each 323 word block. This symbol does not appear to be a character of the unknown language - it would be too slow to draw.<br /><br />All of the words written in the unknown language are exactly 8 symbols long.<br /><br />323 = 17 x 19. If the words are arrainged in a 17 x 19 grid then the last 323 block of text would appear as follows (The languages have been translated for you and you'll have to scroll it to see it all).<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-pb_P1ZqRr04/WKiok3GHYtI/AAAAAAAAFGs/04QPRfnWAQkOcJZd9Sa6Fc5H1xgdhnosACLcB/s1600/message%255B1%255D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-pb_P1ZqRr04/WKiok3GHYtI/AAAAAAAAFGs/04QPRfnWAQkOcJZd9Sa6Fc5H1xgdhnosACLcB/s1600/message%255B1%255D.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div>Arranged like this the word Anubis always appears at the right hand side of the grid.<br /><br />There are 22 symbols used in the unknown language including a • which is possibly used as as a separator. The symbol <img border="0" height="15" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-quHbPC7auBI/WKipkAYT5PI/AAAAAAAAFHA/jxiCmpjuZoYre3y16T1WMP3-uwTwsfMewCEw/s1600/comma.png" width="10" /> is also possibly used as some form of punctuation.<br /><br />Apart from these two symbols and 16 other symbols which occur in the last text block all of the other symbols used consist of four other symbols only. These symbols are:<br /><br /><img border="0" height="30" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qgcjiEtyehc/WKis4gTyDII/AAAAAAAAFHI/7a1SbDXV-ZEaYwpBmfNh1q8hcjhmm1dRgCLcB/s1600/Adenine.png" width="30" />&nbsp; <img border="0" height="30" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-tQm0wzmNrGg/WKis4qhdA5I/AAAAAAAAFHQ/OYHiBfJaOyA5oiDvznSFRiq-8PHS_iZzgCLcB/s1600/Cytosine.png" width="30" />&nbsp; <img border="0" height="30" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-O4Uo6SAK4GU/WKis4qN1OmI/AAAAAAAAFHM/GPKZILBbNmoQIU-pqXdFXWTIEUUsmDMiQCLcB/s1600/Guanine.png" width="30" />&nbsp; <img border="0" height="30" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-SBfBSinzpJQ/WKis49zfopI/AAAAAAAAFHU/4sljPF0BRukQegMCVZ8sENkhEVPl-HR7QCLcB/s1600/Thymine.png" width="30" /><br />The Triplet family also hold a rectangular shape 'stone' which also bears some of these symbols, some lines and crosses:.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-nm2ZPpsvlSg/WKiu3GTWuwI/AAAAAAAAFHk/L5C2FDz3RgAggB-xmLWb9ohvkQ9ZnKFkgCLcB/s1600/Key.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-nm2ZPpsvlSg/WKiu3GTWuwI/AAAAAAAAFHk/L5C2FDz3RgAggB-xmLWb9ohvkQ9ZnKFkgCLcB/s200/Key.png" width="184" /></a></div><br />The message and stone are said to hold the secret to a great power. The Triplet family have been unable to completely decipher it although a great deal more progress has been made since the 1980s when the Mayan language was first translated.<br /><br /><h3>Can you decode the message?</h3><br />Here's some clues:<br /><ul><li>Words written in hieroglyphs can be read left to right or right to left. Find the direction animals face and read in that direction. In the message above the symbols making the words Anubis and Order face left.</li><li>Words written in Phoenician never appear at the bottom of each 17 x 19 grid</li><li>Words written in Old Chinese never appear at the left or at the bottom of the text</li><li>Words written in...</li></ul><div>If you give up remember it remained unsolved for a thousand years <b>AND</b> you can cheat, because the solution is available in our book '<a href="http://smarturl.it/stss" target="_blank">Stones, Stars and Solutions</a>'.</div>John Chapmanhttps://plus.google.com/104152408681286149443noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1329265741756814847.post-85984515280365029032017-01-28T22:29:00.001+00:002017-02-06T17:20:39.795+00:00Immortality Gene<div><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="270" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ZadlV414aA4" width="480"></iframe></div>Is it possible that one day humans could have a greatly extended lifespan and be effectively immortal? There are many scientists who think this is not only possible but will happen during our lifetimes.<br /><h1>Discoveries so far:</h1><ul><li>Telomeres are areas at the end of DNA strands which get shorter as we age and seem to protect the DNA strand as it replicates itself.</li><li>What was formerly called 'Junk' DNA, seems to protect DNA strands from ionising radiation and oxidising agents.</li><li>There's something in young mice blood which rejuvenates old mice. It's absent in the blood of older mice and if removed from young mice, they age quickly.</li><li>There is an immortality gene. As you get older it seems to be switched off. As our understanding of DNA grows we hope to switch it back on.</li><li>Foods containing anti-oxidising agents seem to slow down aging.</li></ul><div>Aubrey de Grey, a biomedical gerontologist and the Chief Science Officer of the SENS Research Foundation believes that the first person to live to age 1,000 is alive now.</div><div>Even if all the medical research comes to nothing, others believe it will be possible to download a human mind into a computer soon—within the next 25 years. That mind can then control a robotic body which won't have out biological frailties (but will have replaceable mechanical parts).</div><h2>Either way—what's the point?</h2><div>No one wants to live a long and unhappy life. Few people want to work forever. Will you get tired of your job and find it becomes a chore? Will you get tired of friends and partners?</div><div>In each case we are thinking in 'three score and ten' mentality. We have a fear of getting old.</div><div><ul><li>We assume that with age comes infirmity. What if this is not the case?</li><li>We assume that we'll look older. What if you could revert back to looking age 25 and stay that way?</li><li>We assume we will have just one career. With a greatly extended lifespan you have time to change careers many times.</li><li>We assume that we will get tired of partners leading to divorce. There are people in the world who have found the perfect partner and have long and happy marriages. You might now have time to find that person.</li><li>We assume we'll get bored. With an extended lifespan you have time to learn new skills; time for leisure; time to explore new things.</li><li>We assume life will be a constant struggle with money. Put away the equivalent of $5.00 per month and by the time you are 1,667 you'll have the equivalent of $100,000 even if you earn no interest. As Albert Einstein famously stated: “<i>Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world. He who understands it, earns it... he who doesn’t... pays it.</i>”</li></ul></div><h2>What is an immortal's lifespan?</h2><div>Unfortunately it's not forever. Insurance tables tell us that if all other causes of death were removed, you would probably face a fatal accident within 1729 years. Being immortal won't stop that (although downloads might allow you to be resurrected). In any event entropy exists and eventually the stars providing our energy will run down. We'll then face something like Isaac Asimov's short story '<a href="http://multivax.com/last_question.html" target="_blank">The last question</a>'.<br />Incidentally did you know my Twitter name is <a href="https://twitter.com/JChapman1729" target="_blank">@JChapman1729</a>?</div><h2>What can we do with immortality?</h2><div>We can save all life on earth. At the moment we are very vulnerable to extinction level events such as the one which wiped out the dinosaurs. Just because it happened a long time ago doesn't mean it won't happen again. When it happens we and the other large animals are likely to be made extinct.<br />We're also vulnerable to the sort of impact which created the moon. If another one of those occurred all life on earth would be destroyed. This is the underlying theme of our 'A Vested Interest' book series, the first of which, '<a href="http://smarturl.it/avi" target="_blank">Immortality Gene</a>' is free.<br />A passing rogue neutron star or wandering black hole will also destroy all life without hitting the earth. It would move the earth out of the 'Goldilocks zone' making life impossible.<br /><br />Only by creating a colony of life away from earth can we ensure life's survival. Such a colony has to be around a different star and in the absence of faster than light travel, it will take a lot longer than a 'normal' lifespan to get there. We need to construct a habitat in which people can live, play and enjoy their lives. A long term Ark of all lifeforms on earth. Now isn't that a better idea than trying to kill each other?</div>John Chapmanhttps://plus.google.com/104152408681286149443noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1329265741756814847.post-26609793008207454152017-01-27T17:54:00.000+00:002017-01-27T17:54:33.175+00:00How to make an iPad read iBooks aloud to you<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-0xOoYGrZcAA/WItZWSRK3kI/AAAAAAAAFEU/kkM7E1DLd9ckpnYOUCqx1K-syY5fxASPwCLcB/s1600/ReadingiBooksAloud.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="353" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-0xOoYGrZcAA/WItZWSRK3kI/AAAAAAAAFEU/kkM7E1DLd9ckpnYOUCqx1K-syY5fxASPwCLcB/s400/ReadingiBooksAloud.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>Getting a Kindle Fire to read a Kindle ebook aloud to you is easy but what about iBooks on an iPad?<br /><br />Apple don't make it obvious but you can make an iPad read books aloud to you also. Here's what you need to do….<br /><br /><ol><li>First you are going to need a book in EPUB format. All iBooks are in this format already. If you don't have one - you can get the one I'm using in this image, Raging Storm, free at <a href="http://smarturl.it/ibotr">http://smarturl.it/ibotr</a>&nbsp;You can also send EPUB files to your iCloud email address. When you get the file tap it and add it to iBooks.</li><li>On your iPad go to Settings.</li><li>At the right scroll down to 'Accessibility' and select it.</li><li>Find 'Speech' and select it.</li><li>Turn on 'Speak selection' and 'Highlight Content'. Tap 'Highlight Content' again and choose 'Words'</li><li>Use the slider on 'Speaking rate' to adjust the speed to what you want. There is a delay on this, it will start speaking when you let go of the slider.</li><li>Now leave 'Settings' and go to the iBooks app.</li><li>Load a book.</li><li>At the top right of the screen tap the AA Turn on 'scrolling view.'</li><li>Now tap the first word of the book then drag the blue drag handle (bottom right corner) as far as you want it to read.</li><li>Select 'speak' and it will read the text you have selected to you.</li></ol><div>Happy listening.</div><div><br /></div><div>Hey did you know that you can get the 9th book in the 'A Vested Interest' series - Dust to Dust ?</div><div>It's available for pre-order at Amazon and will be published on 1st Feb. 2017 (My birthday) Most of our ebooks are DRM free so you could convert it to EPUB using the free program 'calibre'.</div><div>Here's the Amazon link - <a href="http://smarturl.it/dtd">http://smarturl.it/dtd</a> &nbsp;</div><br /><br />John Chapmanhttps://plus.google.com/104152408681286149443noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1329265741756814847.post-48788614152505155432016-08-14T15:36:00.000+01:002017-01-27T20:07:30.175+00:00Where is everyone?<h2>Is anyone out there?</h2><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-M2rtV-VxZLg/V8X153car-I/AAAAAAAAEvg/GZ4JxIBSxQAZwG9Lk8l1Jzv0RfHRPaWwwCLcB/s1600/alien.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="192" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-M2rtV-VxZLg/V8X153car-I/AAAAAAAAEvg/GZ4JxIBSxQAZwG9Lk8l1Jzv0RfHRPaWwwCLcB/s320/alien.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>On February 1st 1985 the Search for Extraterrestrial Life - SETI began operations. Since then they have checked thousands of star systems and found - nothing.<br /><br /><h3>Why is that?</h3><div>There are a number of possible reasons. Let's take a look at some of them.</div><div><br /><ol><li><span style="font-family: &quot;georgia&quot; , &quot;times new roman&quot; , serif;"><b>There isn't anyone other than us</b>. Let's see - <span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 19.5px;">T</span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 19.5px;">here are several hundred billion other stars in our Galaxy, and more than 100 billion other galaxies in the part of the universe we can see. It would be extraordinary if we were the only thinking beings in all these vast realms. If there isn't anyone else - 'that's an awful waste of space.'</span></span></span></li><li><b style="color: #333333; font-family: georgia, &quot;times new roman&quot;, serif;">There are other&nbsp;intelligent&nbsp;beings but we are the most advanced and the others haven't developed the technology we could detect</b><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: &quot;georgia&quot; , &quot;times new roman&quot; , serif;">. How likely is that? There's nothing remarkable about our star. Why should we be the leading civilisation?</span></li><li><b style="color: #333333; font-family: georgia, &quot;times new roman&quot;, serif;">There are other intelligent beings but they are far more advanced than us and have no desire to contact us or are unwilling to do so. </b><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: &quot;georgia&quot; , &quot;times new roman&quot; , serif;">That's possible, after all we on earth conceived Star Trek with it's 'prime directive.</span></li><li><b style="color: #333333; font-family: georgia, &quot;times new roman&quot;, serif;"><span style="line-height: 19.5px;">The other&nbsp;civilisations&nbsp;are just too far away for us to detect and for them to detect us</span></b><span style="color: #333333; font-family: &quot;georgia&quot; , &quot;times new roman&quot; , serif; line-height: 19.5px;">. Let's see. We've been using radio since 1880. Let's be generous and assume an intelligent race could pick up radio waves generated by our use of alternating current. We started doing that in 1832. Let's be even more generous and round that up to 200 years. Here's a picture of how far radio waves would have travelled in our galaxy in those 200 years - it's the blue dot. Not the black square!</span><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1xrx_ttUe9k/V7B6UaAfq0I/AAAAAAAAEso/xqoN0bziZXgVv_ZE9V-3leSyNAB59HdAgCLcB/s1600/Human_radio_broadcasts.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1xrx_ttUe9k/V7B6UaAfq0I/AAAAAAAAEso/xqoN0bziZXgVv_ZE9V-3leSyNAB59HdAgCLcB/s400/Human_radio_broadcasts.jpg" width="400" /></a><br />According to some astronomers there are about 14,600 stars in that blue dot. The chances are the aliens won't be aware of us. We can see much further than 200 light years. The further away a star is, the further back in time we look. 200 years ago we were using horses and carts and just starting to use railways. Any civilisation we detect will be ahead of us in technology. That assumes they are wise enough not to have destroyed themselves.)</li><li><b>We are just incredibly lucky to have survived extinction level events to the point where civilisation develops.</b>&nbsp;Extinction level events or ELEs happen regularly.<br />Extinction Level Event Occurrence</li><br /><table border="1" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="2" style="width: 80%px;"> <tbody><tr> <td align="center" width="40%"><strong>Event</strong></td> <td align="center" width="30%"><strong>Happens on average every:<br /> </strong>(years)</td> <td align="center"><strong>Years since last one</strong></td> </tr><tr> <td>Asteroid impact (10 km+ size)</td> <td align="center">100,000,000</td> <td align="center">65,000,000</td> </tr><tr> <td>Supervolcano eruption</td> <td align="center">4,900,000</td> <td align="center">26,500</td> </tr><tr> <td>Nearby nova, supernova or gamma ray burst<br />(A terrifying prospect because it could sterilise a whole group of stellar systems)</td> <td align="center">240,000</td> <td align="center">12,000</td> </tr><tr> <td>Ice age</td> <td align="center">100,000</td> <td align="center">110.000</td> </tr><tr> <td>Geomagnetic reversal</td> <td align="center">200,000 (varies considerably)</td> <td align="center">781,000<br /><br /></td></tr></tbody></table></ol></div><b></b><br /><ol start="6"><li><b style="font-weight: bold;">Advanced&nbsp;civilisations&nbsp;no longer use radio.</b><b>&nbsp;</b>That may be true; after all it is limited by the speed of light and the distances involved are vast. The trouble is we have no idea of what to replace radio with. Perhaps one day we will make that breakthrough and suddenly find ourselves eavesdropping on a vast interstellar communication system.</li></ol><b></b> <br /><div>My money is on number 5. We've barely started looking though, and number 4 is a possibility.<br /><br /><h3>What does this tell us?</h3>We need to keep looking. I'm awfully afraid though, if we don't start pushing out into Space, the life on earth will not survive to ever make contact with aliens. Wouldn't it be better to spend our money pushing out from the earth than on endless silly wars that nobody wants to fight? That is the theme of our '<a href="http://avestedinterest.info/" target="_blank">A Vested Interest</a>' book series.<br /><br /></div><table border="2" style="width: 90%px;"><tbody><tr> <td><table border="0" cellpadding="5" style="width: 100%px;"><tbody><tr> <td align="left" valign="middle">If this post has helped or entertained, will you help us? Download a FREE copy of our book 'Immortality Gene' from <a href="http://smarturl.it/avi" target="_blank">http://smarturl.it/avi</a>&nbsp;It's part of a series dealing with our need to push out into Space.<br />Even if you never read it (but we hope you will) - it will help our rankings. </td><td valign="middle" width="160"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-QKHrmutLvmo/U-S-5EKCl6I/AAAAAAAACz8/XYHkwbBGqD0/s1600/bluearrowpointleft.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Look - a FREE e-book" border="0" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-QKHrmutLvmo/U-S-5EKCl6I/AAAAAAAACz8/XYHkwbBGqD0/s1600/bluearrowpointleft.png" title="Call to action" /></a></div></td> </tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table><h3>And your views...?</h3><h2><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1329265741756814847" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></h2><div>Now it's your turn. Please use the comments to tell us why you think we haven't detected signs of intelligent life in Space. (Yes - I know. We haven't detected signs of it on earth either!)</div>John Chapmanhttps://plus.google.com/104152408681286149443noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1329265741756814847.post-13487195273571203692014-03-17T16:53:00.002+00:002014-03-17T17:07:27.425+00:00Your agent submission was rejected?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Jo2IhXBt-NM/Uycgi6XJ9qI/AAAAAAAACg0/dq5MivT-orw/s1600/image001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Jo2IhXBt-NM/Uycgi6XJ9qI/AAAAAAAACg0/dq5MivT-orw/s1600/image001.jpg" height="185" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><v:shapetype coordsize="21600,21600" filled="f" id="_x0000_t75" o:preferrelative="t" o:spt="75" path="m@4@5l@4@11@9@11@9@5xe" stroked="f"> <v:stroke joinstyle="miter"> <v:formulas> <v:f eqn="if lineDrawn pixelLineWidth 0"> <v:f eqn="sum @0 1 0"> <v:f eqn="sum 0 0 @1"> <v:f eqn="prod @2 1 2"> <v:f eqn="prod @3 21600 pixelWidth"> <v:f eqn="prod @3 21600 pixelHeight"> <v:f eqn="sum @0 0 1"> <v:f eqn="prod @6 1 2"> <v:f eqn="prod @7 21600 pixelWidth"> <v:f eqn="sum @8 21600 0"> <v:f eqn="prod @7 21600 pixelHeight"> <v:f eqn="sum @10 21600 0"> </v:f></v:f></v:f></v:f></v:f></v:f></v:f></v:f></v:f></v:f></v:f></v:f></v:formulas> <v:path gradientshapeok="t" o:connecttype="rect" o:extrusionok="f"> <o:lock aspectratio="t" v:ext="edit"></o:lock></v:path></v:stroke></v:shapetype><v:shape id="Picture_x0020_1" o:spid="_x0000_s1026" style="height: 57.6pt; left: 0px; margin-left: 0.2pt; margin-top: 7.2pt; position: absolute; visibility: visible; width: 99.4pt; z-index: -251652096;" type="#_x0000_t75"> <v:imagedata o:title="" src="file:///C:\Users\JCHAPM~1\AppData\Local\Temp\msohtmlclip1\01\clip_image001.jpg"> <w:wrap type="tight"></w:wrap></v:imagedata></v:shape>One thing you should be prepared for though; agents are absolutely inundated with submissions. They probably will take a while to look at what you wrote and may very well return your submission. Few are accepted. If that happens – don’t give up, try a different agent. I've seen reports that an average agent accepts just 2% of authors who approach.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="floatclear" style="clear: both;"></div><div class="MsoNormal">The chances are that sooner or later you’ll probably get discouraged by rejections. At that point you should take a serious look at what you've submitted.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><h4>Five points you need to check:</h4></div><div class="MsoNormal"><ul><li><iframe align="right" frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://rcm-eu.amazon-adsystem.com/e/cm?lt1=_blank&amp;bc1=000000&amp;IS2=1&amp;bg1=FFFFFF&amp;fc1=000000&amp;lc1=0000FF&amp;t=jaydaxdesigns-21&amp;o=2&amp;p=8&amp;l=as4&amp;m=amazon&amp;f=ifr&amp;ref=ss_til&amp;asins=B007IL5B1M" style="height: 240px; width: 120px;"></iframe>Does it have that ‘hook’ to catch interest? In other words does it catch your interest in the very beginning? Think of how you browse for books in a bookstore. Would you buy your book based on the content of the first three pages?<br />Here’s the opening paragraphs from ‘The Power Trip’ by Jackie Collins as an example: <ol><i>The couple on the bed had sex as if it was their final act. And for one of them it was.<br />Neither of them heard the door slowly open.</i></ol>Would that make you want to keep reading?</li><li>Get someone else to read the synopsis you include. Do they find it interesting?<o:p></o:p></li><li>Does it have a prologue? If so get rid of it. For many agents a prologue is an instant turn-off.&nbsp;<o:p></o:p>Oh – before someone points out that those Jackie Collins lines come from the start of a prologue, it seems a very short prologue – more like a very short chapter which Jackie didn't dare call ‘Chapter 1’.</li><li>Is the story the right length? It should be 60,000 -120,000 words. Any shorter and publishers will be reluctant to publish it because setting it up will be too expensive. Any longer and it will be too expensive to edit and they’ll be reluctant to invest so much in an untried author.</li><li>Is your accompanying letter good enough? Try including in your cover letter a one paragraph story synopsis starting with 'When..' and using this formula.&nbsp;<div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">[Protagonist] who finds himself/herself in [situation] from which he/she tries to free himself/herself by [goal]. However, the [antagonist] wants to stop [protagonist] from this, and if successful, will cause the [protagonist] to experience [disastrous result].<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">Here’s an example of its use:<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>When a young girl moves to live with her father in a small town in Washington, she meets the boy of her dreams. He has a dark secret which she discovers. In doing so, she finds herself at risk of death from people like him. She is rescued by her new boyfriend, but still is at risk from others like him who want to kill her. She knows that all will be solved if she shares her boyfriend’s secret, but he is reluctant to allow this since he fears it will turn her into a monster.</i><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">Recognize the story? Twilight?<o:p></o:p></div></li><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div></ul></div>If you are confident that you have met all these requirements, continue making multiple submissions to agents at the same time rather than one at a time. Agents don’t really like you doing this but often it’s the only way to cut submission times from years to months.<br /><div class="MsoNormal"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">The one thing you shouldn't do is to allow yourself to be discouraged to the point where your book is never published ‘because it isn't any good’. Repeated rejections are quite normal. Few authors ever find success immediately. I know of one successful author who bound all her rejection letters into a long roll and when she’s asked to speak about the process dramatically allows it to unroll across the room.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">By the time you've had 30 rejections it's time to consider going down the self-publishing route. Maybe you should have done that first?<o:p></o:p></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"></div><div class="MsoNormal"></div><br /><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div></div>John Chapmanhttps://plus.google.com/104152408681286149443noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1329265741756814847.post-14280160673501993062013-10-29T15:43:00.000+00:002015-06-13T16:56:35.280+01:00Do You Prefer E-Books or Print?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-kz5-jqTN_EQ/Um_UneCZLiI/AAAAAAAACa0/EibtyHfjmlA/s1600/IMAG0279sm.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="226" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-kz5-jqTN_EQ/Um_UneCZLiI/AAAAAAAACa0/EibtyHfjmlA/s320/IMAG0279sm.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>I'll choose e-readers - no contest.<br /><br /><ul><li>Whilst I too love the smell and feel of a book, we buy them for their content not their smell and feel. If the lack of 'paper smell' bothers you you can buy a 'book smell' perfume to spray on your e-reader.</li><li>I'd much rather carry an e-reader than the complete Encyclopaedia Britannica. I think my library of 3,000+ paper books probably weighs about a ton. Most of them could fit on my Kindle Keyboard&nbsp;</li><li>I've just finished reading a hardback book I've had since 2009. Stephen King's 'Under the Dome.' I had not read it because it weighs 1.3 kilograms (2.3 pounds) - too heavy to read unsupported. (Enjoyable book if you want to read it - get the e-book at B&amp;N because Amazon seem to have a problem with it's publisher)</li><li>Putting another book on the bookshelf may satisfy some people but I have trouble finding a space for an extra book on my shelves. I've used up all the normal space (two books deep) and have run out of space between the book tops and the next shelf!&nbsp;</li><li>I like to read relaxing in a bath. I may fall asleep and a soggy book is not easy to salvage. Your e-reader may not like water either but you can read it inside a ziplock plastic bag far easier than a paper copy!&nbsp;</li><li>My e-readers play music and can read my book to me. The only paper book I have that does that was bought years ago for my children.&nbsp;</li><li>Can you get Internet on a paper book? Maybe this will be possible in the future when flexible screens become available. My Nexus 7 has full Internet, plays movies, makes video calls and takes pictures also. (OK - not excellent ones)</li><li>Price? In general e-books cost less than a new book. Second-hand paper books may cost even less but that may change.</li><li>When you buy an e-book you buy a licence to read it. Most people are not keen on this but if you face a disaster which destroys your library - a fire, &nbsp;your ebooks will still be there in the cloud whereas your paper books will be in the smoke.</li><li><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-T0-bdG8pmFc/Um_WPv-iMRI/AAAAAAAACbA/v4a6bmoCezc/s1600/Wicked_Bible_640x427.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="117" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-T0-bdG8pmFc/Um_WPv-iMRI/AAAAAAAACbA/v4a6bmoCezc/s320/Wicked_Bible_640x427.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The 'wicked bible' error.</td></tr></tbody></table>Few books are perfect. They contain typos, spelling mistakes, grammar mistakes, timeline errors, sentences which could be phrased better. Once you've bought a paper book - you're stuck with the errors but ebooks can be updated. </li></ul><div>That's my choice. What about you?</div>John Chapmanhttps://plus.google.com/104152408681286149443noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1329265741756814847.post-68088785823716484332013-03-08T03:16:00.000+00:002014-02-28T12:07:52.506+00:00What if science discovered a way to stop and reverse ageing?<br /><h1 style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.701961); font-family: 'Adobe Garamond Pro';">If humans were immortal...</h1><div style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.701961); font-family: 'Adobe Garamond Pro'; font-size: 23.33333396911621px; text-shadow: rgb(0, 191, 255) 0.02em 0.01em 0em;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-3OFwitPoCoY/Upm4B2zuEDI/AAAAAAAACc0/-mTkzGy2_VA/s1600/ImmortalityGene200x320Free.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-3OFwitPoCoY/Upm4B2zuEDI/AAAAAAAACc0/-mTkzGy2_VA/s1600/ImmortalityGene200x320Free.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Get it at Amazon <a href="http://smarturl.it/avi">http://smarturl.it/avi</a><br />or iTunes <a href="http://smarturl.it/iavi">http://smarturl.it/iavi</a></td></tr></tbody></table>Let's suppose a medical research team did discover a way of reversing old age and the effects of illness, effectively making people immortal. What should they do with their 'fix'?</div><ol style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.701961); font-family: 'Adobe Garamond Pro'; font-size: 23.33333396911621px;"><li>Should they sell it at a huge price so that only the rich could afford it?</li><li>Should they make it freely available to everyone by using a life virus to infect everyone it comes in contact with?</li><li>Should they make it available for a small fee to anyone who wants it on condition they are sterilized first?</li><li>Should immortality be reserved for those who have proved they deserve it?</li><li>Should they hide their discovery in fear of the chaos it would cause?</li></ol><div style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.701961); font-family: 'Adobe Garamond Pro'; font-size: 23.33333396911621px; text-shadow: rgb(0, 191, 255) 0.02em 0.01em 0em;">I think you'll agree that option 1 is just simply wrong. The only way it would be successful would be for the discovery to remain a top secret. Once the knowledge got out - and it would get out - those who had benefited would be universally hated and would die at the hands of a mob probably.</div><div style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.701961); font-family: 'Adobe Garamond Pro'; font-size: 23.33333396911621px; text-shadow: rgb(0, 191, 255) 0.02em 0.01em 0em;">Option 2 takes away the right of people to choose. There would be some who would say that this was playing God and was just wrong. Expect riots from these people. Another group would resent their lack of choice and would press for assisted suicide programs - who wants to live a long and unhappy life?</div><div style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.701961); font-family: 'Adobe Garamond Pro'; font-size: 23.33333396911621px; text-shadow: rgb(0, 191, 255) 0.02em 0.01em 0em;">Can you see option 3 being popular? What if the 'fix' undid the sterilization. Would people pay to have this reversed once they were immortal?</div><div style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.701961); font-family: 'Adobe Garamond Pro'; font-size: 23.33333396911621px; text-shadow: rgb(0, 191, 255) 0.02em 0.01em 0em;">Who chooses the 'worthy' in option 4? What if you are a worthy individual but never got a chance to prove it?</div><div style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.701961); font-family: 'Adobe Garamond Pro'; font-size: 23.33333396911621px; text-shadow: rgb(0, 191, 255) 0.02em 0.01em 0em;">Would any doctor agree to option 5? Isn't the whole purpose of medicine to extend human life? Do people have the moral right to hide such a discovery?</div><div style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.701961); font-family: 'Adobe Garamond Pro'; font-size: 23.33333396911621px; text-shadow: rgb(0, 191, 255) 0.02em 0.01em 0em;">In our book&nbsp;<a href="http://smarturl.it/avi">A Vested Interest&nbsp;- Immortality Gene</a>&nbsp;the&nbsp;story chooses option 2. If the story in 'A Vested Interest' were to become reality, just what would be the effect?</div><ul style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.701961);"><li style="font-family: 'Adobe Garamond Pro'; font-size: 23.33333396911621px;">The book suggests a lifetime of 1729 years. That's not immortal but assumes a human will stay healthy until killed by an accident, starvation, war, an '<a href="http://jaydax.blogspot.com/2008/10/last-sound.html">Extinction Level Event</a>' (ELE) or some other overwhelming event. According to insurance tables I found that would happen on average in 1729 years.</li><li style="font-family: 'Adobe Garamond Pro'; font-size: 23.33333396911621px;">Damaged tissue would be regenerated. An amputee would re-grow a limb, hair would re-grow on the bald, lost teeth would be replaced and body parts lost through surgery would be replaced. That includes contraceptive surgery! Cosmetic surgery would be stable if it was to repair physical or age damage but would reverse if it were done to change appearance.</li><li style="font-family: 'Adobe Garamond Pro'; font-size: 23.33333396911621px;">What would happen to the population of the world? The population could be expected to soar initially putting a huge strain on the food supply and the demand for resources and energy. Many millions would starve. However, gradually the desperate 'urge' driving us to reproduce and replace ourselves would be brought under control - we would, after all, have plenty of time for that 'later' when we felt more secure. No longer would we feel the need to have children to help us in our old age. Eventually the population would be brought under control at a level a great deal higher than it is now.</li><li style="font-family: 'Adobe Garamond Pro'; font-size: 23.33333396911621px;">Food would be scarce initially but again this would be resolved as more areas became cultivated including sea farms, 'arid' areas and underground. It's likely that new food sources would be developed including bacterial cultures, fungal sources and direct synthesis. Cellulose from plants - wheat straw, bamboo, kelp and grasses would be converted to edible food. Meat would be cultured from cells taken from living animals.</li><li style="font-family: 'Adobe Garamond Pro'; font-size: 23.33333396911621px;">Water would be scarce in many areas for some time. A grid taking water from where it is plentiful to other areas would eventually be created.</li><li style="font-family: 'Adobe Garamond Pro'; font-size: 23.33333396911621px;">The natural inclination would be to fight for food, land and resources. Initially that's exactly what would happen but we would eventually learn that cooperation produces better results.</li><li style="font-family: 'Adobe Garamond Pro'; font-size: 23.33333396911621px;">Soldiers might think twice before fighting for any other principles - it is one thing to give up 30-40 years of life but an entirely different thing to give up 1000+ years. Those who didn't see things this way would probably not be missed!</li><li style="font-family: 'Adobe Garamond Pro'; font-size: 23.33333396911621px;">A career would probably not be a lifetime decision. It would be changed many times. You would not want to stay in a hated job and would have plenty of time to learn new skills. The demand for education would be high as older generations go back to school to learn new skills. As far as normal K12 education was concerned the pressure would be off and there would be more time for 'fun' in school with lessons being devoted to leisure activities. K12 would become K15?</li><li style="font-family: 'Adobe Garamond Pro'; font-size: 23.33333396911621px;">Politicians would want to remain in power for much longer, the climb up the political ladder would be much harder. Maybe we would someday elect 'reluctant politicians' who would see it as their civic duty to serve for a time rather than out of a desire for power. After all; anyone who wants to lead a country is probably the last person you should give the job to!</li><li style="font-family: 'Adobe Garamond Pro'; font-size: 23.33333396911621px;">Premeditated crimes of violence would eventually decrease. Those inclined to violence would, over time, be eliminated from the gene pool by that very violence. Crimes of passion would no doubt continue!</li><li><span style="font-family: Adobe Garamond Pro;"><span style="font-size: 23.33333396911621px;">The urge to move to a better place would be overwhelming - even if that meant transforming a harsh environment to make it&nbsp;</span><span style="font-size: 23px;">liveable</span><span style="font-size: 23.33333396911621px;">.</span></span></li><li style="font-family: 'Adobe Garamond Pro'; font-size: 23.33333396911621px;">Undersea and underground communities would be set up - anywhere there is space available. The Earth's surface might eventually become a park for leisure.</li><li style="font-family: 'Adobe Garamond Pro'; font-size: 23.33333396911621px;">Space would be colonized; the Moon and asteroids first, followed by Mars, the satellites of other planets and finally other solar systems.</li><li style="font-family: 'Adobe Garamond Pro'; font-size: 23.33333396911621px;">Raw materials and energy would be at a premium. Both will cause problems initially but will be solved as nuclear fusion, deep robotic mining and resources from space become available.</li><li style="font-family: 'Adobe Garamond Pro'; font-size: 23.33333396911621px;">Waste heat would become a major problem. Much of it will be recycled though.</li><li style="font-family: 'Adobe Garamond Pro'; font-size: 23.33333396911621px;">Recycling of waste would be a major industry.</li><li style="font-family: 'Adobe Garamond Pro'; font-size: 23.33333396911621px;">Concerns about global warming would soar for a while then prove unfounded as people realize that sea levels just are not rising. and the temperature starts to fall around 2040 as we enter the next ice age. (Try reading Michael Crichton's 'State of Fear'). The drive to reduce carbon emissions would continue though since we wouldn't be able to burn fossil fuels needed as raw materials.</li><li style="font-family: 'Adobe Garamond Pro'; font-size: 23.33333396911621px;">Technology will continue to develop at an ever faster rate. Computers and nanotechnology especially. Look forward to a personal computer you can talk to, carry with you, display within your eyes and hear through your teeth!</li><li style="font-family: 'Adobe Garamond Pro'; font-size: 23.33333396911621px;">The average intelligence of the population would increase slowly. A surprising number of 'Darwin Award' candidates would fail to breed.</li><li style="font-family: 'Adobe Garamond Pro'; font-size: 23.33333396911621px;">Most medical staff apart from those dealing with accidents and research would be out of a job. An end perhaps to the ridiculous hours they work?</li><li style="font-family: 'Adobe Garamond Pro'; font-size: 23.33333396911621px;">Retirement and pensions would be a thing of the past. The working week would be shorter and holidays longer.</li><li style="font-family: 'Adobe Garamond Pro'; font-size: 23.33333396911621px;">There would be less 'haste' in everyday life. You now have 'plenty of time'.</li><li style="font-family: 'Adobe Garamond Pro'; font-size: 23.33333396911621px;">Leisure demand would soar.</li><li style="font-family: 'Adobe Garamond Pro'; font-size: 23.33333396911621px;">Drug companies would mostly convert to biotechnology, go out of business or convert to supplying chemical resources and producing food.</li><li style="font-family: 'Adobe Garamond Pro'; font-size: 23.33333396911621px;">People would have an increased awareness of natural disasters and put more energy into averting or nullifying their effects.</li><li style="font-family: 'Adobe Garamond Pro'; font-size: 23.33333396911621px;">Languages would be less of a problem, people would have the time to learn them and eventually we could see a common language developing from bits of all.</li><li style="font-family: 'Adobe Garamond Pro'; font-size: 23.33333396911621px;">Euthanasia centers would be accepted. Who wants to live a long and unhappy life?</li><li style="font-family: 'Adobe Garamond Pro'; font-size: 23.33333396911621px;">We would run out of fossil fuels and resort to biotechnology, nanotechnology and asteroid mining to replace them. Biofuels from products such as corn would prove to be a dead end since the raw materials would be needed to produce food. Algae farming would become important.</li><li style="font-family: 'Adobe Garamond Pro'; font-size: 23.33333396911621px;">Meat (and leather) would be <a href="http://avestedinterest.info/technology.htm#culturedmeat">grown from cells extracted from living animals</a> rather than from slaughtered animals. It would cost less and be better for the environment. Those animals still seen in the countryside, would be there to keep open grassland.</li></ul><div style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.701961); font-family: 'Adobe Garamond Pro'; font-size: 23.33333396911621px; text-shadow: rgb(0, 191, 255) 0.02em 0.01em 0em;">Is it possible? According to Aubrey de Grey&nbsp;<a href="http://www.ted.com/talks/aubrey_de_grey_says_we_can_avoid_aging.html" target="_blank">the first person to live to 1,000 is probably alive now</a>.<br /><br />What's your view? Which of the five options above do you think would be chosen - or can you think of a sixth?</div>John Chapmanhttps://plus.google.com/104152408681286149443noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1329265741756814847.post-17241335025246747592013-01-13T16:50:00.001+00:002018-10-11T19:48:00.052+01:00Blogging to promote your book<h3>What sort of blog post should an author make?</h3>John Locke in his book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0056BMK6K/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=jaydax08&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=B0056BMK6K">How I Sold 1 Million eBooks in 5 Months!</a><img alt="" border="0" src="https://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaydax08&amp;l=as2&amp;o=1&amp;a=B0056BMK6K" height="1" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1">&nbsp;suggested that the best method an author could use to use blogging to promote a book was not to write about the book itself but to produce a blog post designed to go viral and which contains subtle links which encourage the reader to find out about your book. Although John is currently in 'author disgrace' over the paid for reviews issue, he's spot on with his blogging technique.<br /><br /><h3>John Locke's famous blog post</h3><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-o3bqkbtvTeY/W7-aWXiHoNI/AAAAAAAAGOY/DZCYAYQMDoQlFMtASpnuHT7X101lFOWEACLcBGAs/s1600/john-locke2.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="125" data-original-width="118" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-o3bqkbtvTeY/W7-aWXiHoNI/AAAAAAAAGOY/DZCYAYQMDoQlFMtASpnuHT7X101lFOWEACLcBGAs/s1600/john-locke2.png" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">John Locke</td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: left;"></div>John wrote a post <a href="http://www.donovancreed.com/Blog/tabid/105/ID/25/Why-I-Love-Joe-Paterno-and-my-Mom.aspx">Why I Love Joe Paterno and my Mom!</a> in which he blogged about how his mother encouraged him to find a role model, his choice being Joe Paterno, a longtime football coach at Penn State. The blog makes only a minor reference to John being an author but is hosted on his website where his audience can read more about his work. John promoted the blog by sending the link to it to Penn State University related bulletin boards, blogs and people tweeting about PSU. It quickly went viral, being read not just by football fans. Part of its attraction was his choice of title - we may not all know Joe Paterno but we all have a mother.<br /><br /><div style="clear: both;"></div><h3>My attempt at a John Locke style post</h3>I had a go at writing a John Locke type blog post myself. Here's what I came up with:<br /><hr /><div id="biopost"><h1>Bio-terrorism and the cure for the common cold</h1><h4>How to catch a cold</h4>Everyone knows how easy it is to catch a cold but there are some things about the process that aren't common knowledge. Let's try an experiment. While you read this don't touch your eyes!<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/--EABJPdHiKY/TqinAXlb7QI/AAAAAAAAAQ0/E202lbOPy68/s1600/coldfluremediesgetty-1319112464%255B1%255D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="120" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/--EABJPdHiKY/TqinAXlb7QI/AAAAAAAAAQ0/E202lbOPy68/s200/coldfluremediesgetty-1319112464%255B1%255D.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>Imagine someone with a cold gets in a lift. They sneeze and a fine mist of spray spreads everywhere. It quickly settles though. They get to their floor and exit the lift. You call the lift from two floors down and the first thing you do when you get in is to press the button to select your floor. A button covered by a fine spray of cold virus.<br /><br />So now you have the cold virus on your finger. Not a big problem, it's unlikely to get through the skin on your finger. Of course you could infect yourself with a cold by now eating something.<br /><br />Touched or want to touch your eyes yet?<br /><br />As you've probably found out by now, we touch our eyes all the time and as soon as you do, that &nbsp;virus finds a warm, moist very thin membrane and promptly infects you. Ever noticed how a cold can make your eyes sore?<br /><br /><h4>Deliberately spreading&nbsp;contagion</h4>Now imagine a terrorist intent on using biological warfare. A good way to spread contagion would be to spread their substance on anything which people frequently touch. Lift buttons, push plates on doors, door handles, shopping cart handles, magazines in a shop, &nbsp;newspapers and books in a library. Money! Forget the idea of sending letters. There are a huge number of ways of spreading any virus using things we touch.<br /><br /><h4>Why there's no cure or vaccine</h4>Now imagine a genetic researcher who has made a fantastic discovery. He/she has come up with a genetic fix which will forever stop people from catching the common cold.<br /><br />Would you buy it assuming it's 100% safe and costs little? Of course you would!<br /><br />So if this had been produced do you think you would get the opportunity? Frankly you would have as much chance as a celluloid cat being chased by an asbestos dog through the fires of Hell!<br /><br />"Why?" I hear you ask. "If it was safe why wouldn't it be available?"<br /><br />The answer is simple. The people who would be marketing this are the very people who make a fortune &nbsp;every year by selling cold remedies. Are they ever going to willingly give up those billions of dollars of regular income?<br /><br />That's why there are really no serious research projects into curing or preventing the common cold. None of the so called remedies actually cure a cold. If you buy them you might, if you are lucky, get some slight relief from the symptoms ...and you can get that effect with a simple home remedy. Here's the recipe:<br /><br /><h4>A home remedy</h4>In a tall glass:<br /><ul><li>add 2 fingers depth&nbsp;whiskey&nbsp;(cheap stuff)</li><li>add 2 fingers depth honey</li><li>add 2 fingers depth lemon juice</li><li>Fill the glass with hot water, stir well and drink.</li><li>Go to bed with a good book and relax or sleep it off.</li></ul>If you find your symptoms are not better after an hour or so repeat.<br /><br />Now I know what some of you are going to say. "I don't like whiskey," but believe me - this tastes nothing like it. It tastes good, relieves a sore throat, relieves congestion and after three of them you won't care about the cold!<br /><br />OK - free advice over; now let's consider something else.<br /><br /><h4>What bio-terrorism has to do with a cure</h4><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ONEFKFo-6zg/Upm27BGAp9I/AAAAAAAACco/dzpovoDIbiw/s1600/ImmortalityGene200x320Free.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ONEFKFo-6zg/Upm27BGAp9I/AAAAAAAACco/dzpovoDIbiw/s1600/ImmortalityGene200x320Free.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Get it at Amazon <a href="http://smarturl.it/avi">http://smarturl.it/avi</a></td></tr></tbody></table>During the course of researching our 'A Vested Interest' books I had occasion to investigate gene therapy. Imagine a genetic researcher has produced that cold cure. It really works and he knows it's safe. But he/she can't market it for the reasons explained above. He/she can't announce it either without putting their life at risk. There's a multi-billion dollar industry at stake here remember?<br /><br />The researcher knows the people of the world want the cure though. Does that researcher have the right to deny them it? Should they risk the wrath of the drug companies to make it available?<br /><br />I think you'll find that the researcher would adopt the bio-terrorist tactics to release his/her product.<br /><br />Sooner or later some well meaning person <i>will </i>do this! </div><br /><hr /><div><h3>So how did my post do? </h3>Well I followed the John Locke formula and wrote a post which replaced the common to all factor of 'Mum' with 'Cold' - something we've all gone through the misery of. Like John I made a subtle reference to being an author and didn't over emphasise 'the book'. I used a buzzword 'Bio-terrorism' instead of 'Joe Paterno' which played on media fear factor rather than hero worship. I even got some well known authors, including John Locke, adding comments - which I responded to. You can <a href="http://avestedinterest.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/bio-terrorism-and-cure-for-common-cold.html">see the original post and comments here</a>. My post didn't go viral however. John Locke's Joe Paterno post had 100s of comments and mine had 10. Where I failed was in promoting the blog.<br /><br /><ul><li>I failed to seek out people posting about having a cold or bio-terrorism&nbsp;</li><li>I failed to use Twitter effectively. At the time John made his post he had 1000s of Twitter followers whereas I was new to Twitter, had only 200 followers and didn't know about hashtags or searching Twitter.</li><li>I didn't know about <a href="http://triberr.com/">Triberr</a> either and wasted the&nbsp;opportunity&nbsp;to have it promoted there.</li><li>My blog was hosted at blogspot rather than at my own domain and in the original post I didn't have links to <a href="http://avestedinterest.info/">my site</a>.</li></ul><div>In two areas my blog post was better than John's though.&nbsp;</div><div><ol><li>I included a graphic. People like pictures - they are attention grabbers. Use relevant pictures!</li><li>I used lots of sub-headings. Subheadings allow the reader to quickly skim an article to see if it's what they are really interested in without having to read the whole thing.</li></ol><h3>What you as an author should do</h3></div><div><ol><li>Write about a blog subject which you know well and which you feel others should know about.</li><li>Don't write 'Buy my book' blog posts. Reading those is as popular as sitting down to watch just the adverts on TV.</li><li>Include subtle references to your author craft and books. Give the reader the&nbsp;opportunity to find out more if they wish.</li><li>Use pictures and break your blog down with subheadings.</li><li>Unless you have a massive blog following already, you are probably wasting your time if you don't have a good understanding of how to use Twitter and Triberr to promote your posts.&nbsp;</li><li>Seek out those who have blogged, discussed and tweeted about similar subjects and make them aware of the link to your post. Don't be afraid of posting to other authors. Authors are usually prolific readers - I read 64 books last year just on my Kindle.</li><li>Your aim is for the post to go viral!</li><li>Try and finish your blog post with a question. One which your readers will feel inclined to answer in the comments. Of course I didn't do that in my post. What do you think a good question to end on would have been?</li></ol></div></div>John Chapmanhttps://plus.google.com/104152408681286149443noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1329265741756814847.post-53033596815669353352013-01-08T03:02:00.002+00:002014-04-21T14:31:29.569+01:00What if my book on Amazon gets a bad review?No matter how brilliant your book, sooner or later, someone will give it a bad review and you are going to hate it. You may even be convinced it's responsible for a sudden drop in sales.<br /><br />Now you would expect that if the bad review was on Amazon that it would be hidden away from prospective readers to encourage sales but Amazon's policy is to be open about bad reviews and not hide them.<br /><h3>Why did you get a bad review?</h3>If you read an unfavourable review you'll quickly find it will fit one of these categories:<br /><br /><ol><li>The reader didn't like the story because it didn't match his/her expectations. Maybe they expected a medical thriller and saw only romance.</li><li>The reader wrote a detailed review pointing out flaws in the plot and explaining why they spoiled the story for them.</li><li>The review picks out spelling, grammar and formatting problems. That is your problem - make corrections urgently.</li><li>The reader had problems downloading or displaying the ebook. That hopefully should not be your problem but you might like to make Amazon aware of that.</li><li>The reader wrote a review which has nothing to do with your book! Maybe they have reviewed the wrong book?</li><li>The review is obviously hateful and indicates flaws which don't exist, trashing your book.</li></ol><div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-jsRTWqlFy3U/Upm82cPKoXI/AAAAAAAACdA/sYLr13I1298/s1600/ImmortalityGene200x320Free.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-jsRTWqlFy3U/Upm82cPKoXI/AAAAAAAACdA/sYLr13I1298/s1600/ImmortalityGene200x320Free.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">We've had our share of poor reviews<br />for our <a href="http://smarturl.it/avi">free book - Immortality Gene</a><br />(and some brilliant ones). &nbsp;We changed <br />the description, edited the book again<br />and bit our tongue over the #5 and 6.</td></tr></tbody></table>If your poor review is #1 then it may be that you have to look again at your book description and the genre it's placed in. You'll quickly recognise the truth or not of what the reviewer is saying. let it be a learning experience.</div><div><br /></div><div>For poor review #2, again learn from the review. Maybe your story needs revision? I doubt there is an author in&nbsp;existence&nbsp;who does not believe their work could be improved upon later.</div><div><br /></div><div>Review type #3 means you are going to have to work harder at the proofreading stage or better still, employ a professional editor and a book formatter to do the job properly. One other cause for a spelling comment in a review is where the reader is unfamiliar with standard English spelling from a different country. Those writers from England, Canada and Australia often get taken to task over their spelling by reviewers from the US. They are apparently not aware that the words 'colour', 'centre', 'tyre' and 'defence' are not spelling errors.</div><div><br /></div><div>Reviews #4 and #5 might be worth mentioning to Amazon. In the first case the reviewer should have the&nbsp;opportunity&nbsp;to download a functional copy of the book. In the second case it may be a reviewer error which can be withdrawn and applied to the correct book.</div><div><br /></div><div>It's type #6 that is the greatest problem. If it contains swear words or personal attacks then complain to Amazon. This would be against their guidelines and <i>aught </i>to be removed. Amazon will not remove other reviews since everyone is entitled to their opinion. It may be the reviewer&nbsp;genuinely&nbsp;hated your book. If that's the case - why did they bother? It may be that this review was placed by a competitor in your genre who is deliberately trying to move you down the top 100 lists so that their book can take its place. Something like this would be very hard to prove. Unfortunately there are people who will do this! It's possible also that you may have offended someone and they are taking it out on your book. As an author you must learn to be very careful in what you say in social media sites. You do NOT want to create enemies on Internet who know about your books.</div><h3>So what do you do to correct the #6 review?</h3><div>The best advice is - do nothing! Try your best to ignore it and hope that you'll get more favourable reviews to overwhelm the poor one.</div><div><br /></div><div>Whatever you do, don't comment on a bad review and draw it out into a discussion. All that will do is to draw further attention to the poor review and make it's position on Amazon more prominent. You might also put more people off by your attack on a review. If you really <i>must </i>make a comment - do so either as a&nbsp;separate&nbsp;review or better still by making reference to it in a favourable review you have. That way the favourable review will gain prominence.</div>John Chapmanhttps://plus.google.com/104152408681286149443noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1329265741756814847.post-50242165084128269342013-01-08T02:05:00.001+00:002014-02-08T19:15:44.831+00:00Making a Kindle Fire HD and Kindle Fire HDX load apps NOT in the Amazon store?If you get a Kindle Fire as a Christmas present or as an upgrade then by now you'll probably have found its limitation - you are tied to those apps which Amazon has decided you need.<br /><br /><h3>The Problem</h3><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-2eoiQf3JbSg/UOrs22qnq5I/AAAAAAAAA88/f9UUyzgKvMc/s1600/Nook-on-Fire.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-2eoiQf3JbSg/UOrs22qnq5I/AAAAAAAAA88/f9UUyzgKvMc/s320/Nook-on-Fire.jpg" height="278" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Nook reader on a Kindle Fire HD!</td></tr></tbody></table>Amazon's Appstore for Android contained 50,000 apps back in early September 2012 but that was nowhere near the 700,000 offered by Google Play and Apple App Store then. The obvious solution would be for Kindle Fire owners to download Android apps from Google Play - except you can't. The Kindle Fire HD simply won't allow you to connect to the Google Play store and download the app you want - you have to get it from Amazon. That's very understandable. Amazon tell us they are not making a lot of profit from sales of their Kindle Fire. Instead they expect to make their profit from sales of books, video, music and apps. To do that they make it easy to obtain these from the Amazon site and difficult, but not impossible, to get apps from elsewhere.<br /><br /><h3>The Solution</h3>Android is an open source operating system and the Kindle Fire HD has version 4.0 of it. So most of the apps in the Google Play store should work just fine. In fact most of them do work, you just have to get them on your Kindle. Here's how to do that using a technique known as sideloading.<br /><br /><h3>You are going to need some equipment, most of which you probably already have:</h3><br /><ul><li>An Android device (we'll call this 'device 2') such as a mobile phone or tablet which you <i>can </i>connect to the Google Store</li><li>A USB to micro USB lead which fits your computer and Kindle Fire/device 2</li><li>A computer&nbsp;</li><li>Your Kindle Fire</li><li>An app - ES File Explorer installed on the Kindle Fire HD/HDX&nbsp;<i>and </i>device 2. (yes this is available from the Amazon Appstore <i>and </i>on Google Play. It's free!)</li></ul><div>Now you need to know what to do. As an example I'm going to show you how I installed the Nook ebook reading app on my Kindle Fire HD and my Kindle Fire HDX. Naturally this competitor app is not an app available on the Amazon Appstore for Android but it's very useful to have if you earlier purchased a Nook ereader and want to read your Nook books or epub books on your Kindle Fire.<br /><h3>How to sideload an Android app to a Kindle Fire HD</h3><ol><li>Install ES file explorer on your Kindle. It's available free in the Amazon store.</li><li>Install ES file explorer on your other Android device. It's available free at Google Play</li><li>Install the Nook reader software on your other Android device from the Google Store. Again it's a free app from Google Store.</li><li>On the Kindle use More &gt; Settings &gt; Device and set 'Allow Installation of Applications from unknown sources' to 'On'. Accept the warning.</li><li>On the other Android device use ES File Explorer. Choose 'app manager' from settings. Long press on 'Nook' and choose backup.</li><li>Connect the other Android device to your computer using the USB cable. You should see it appears in an explorer window as an extra drive under 'Computer'.&nbsp;</li><li>Navigate to the Nook.apk file you just backed up. In my case, since I was using a Nexus 7 as my 'other Android device' it appeared as Computer\Nexus 7\Internal storage\backups\apps\NOOK_3.3.0.26.apk Copy this file to your PC.</li><li>Connect the Kindle fire to your PC and transfer the Nook.apk file to it. The root folder will do.</li><li>Load ES File Explorer on the Kindle Fire and find the file you just placed there. Once you select it you'll get the option to install it. Do that and try it out.</li><li>On the Kindle use More &gt; Settings &gt; Device and set 'Allow Installation of Applications from unknown sources' to 'Off' again.&nbsp;</li></ol><h3>How to sideload an Android app to a Kindle Fire HDX</h3><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-S-f0mbrl1q8/Upn5oN1iGdI/AAAAAAAACdg/65ljFBTJDaM/s1600/KindleFireHDX.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-S-f0mbrl1q8/Upn5oN1iGdI/AAAAAAAACdg/65ljFBTJDaM/s320/KindleFireHDX.jpg" height="320" width="281" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Kindle Fire HDX is even better. Ours took just one&nbsp;day<br />to arrive from Amazon at&nbsp;<a href="http://smarturl.it/KindleHDX">http://smarturl.it/KindleHDX</a></td></tr></tbody></table>The method works for the Kindle Fire HDX with some minor modifications. I used it to install the Firefox android browser (Sorry Amazon but your browser Silk is rubbish), the Nook e-reader software, Dropbox (which Amazon insist is incompatible but works just fine), and some games not available in Amazon's store. Here's the method for the Kindle Fire HDX. Again I've used the Nook app as an example:<br /><ol><li>Install ES file explorer on your Kindle HDX. It's available free in the Amazon store.</li><li>Install ES file explorer on your other Android device. It's a free app available&nbsp;at Google Play</li><li>Install the Nook reader software on your other Android device from the Google Store. Again it's a free app from Google Store.</li><li>On the Kindle HDX use go to &nbsp;Settings &gt; Applications and set 'Applications from unknown sources' to 'On'. Accept the warning.</li><li>On the other Android device use ES File Explorer. Choose Tools &gt;'app manager' from settings. Long press on 'Nook' and choose backup.</li><li>Connect the other Android device to your computer using the USB cable. You should see it appears in an explorer window as an extra drive under 'Computer'.&nbsp;</li><li>Navigate to the Nook.apk file you just backed up. In my case, since I was using a Nexus 7 as my 'other Android device' it appeared as Computer\Nexus 7\Internal storage\backups\apps\NOOK_3.3.0.26.apk Copy this file to your PC. On a Samsung Galaxy S4 the files appeared in Computer\Galaxy S4\Phone\backups\apps</li><li>Connect the Kindle fire to your PC and transfer the Nook.apk file to it. The root folder will do.</li><li>Load ES File Explorer on the Kindle Fire and find the file you just placed there. Once you select it you'll get the option to install it. Do that and try it out.</li><li>On the Kindle use&nbsp;Settings &gt; Applications and set 'Applications from unknown sources' to&nbsp;'Off' again.&nbsp;</li></ol><h3>Whichever Kindle you're using...</h3>It's a little involved but really quite simple.<br /><br />Of course the same technique can be used to install almost any Android application which isn't available on the Amazon Appstore. There are a few which don't work, Sky Go for one. It installs and you can see what programs are available but it won't let you play them.<br /><br />You can also download apps to your PC from other sources and install them BUT - a word of caution. Although the apps available from Amazon and Google are generally safe, the same can't be said for all app sources. It's unwise to download and install apps you are not certain of. You might install a&nbsp;rogue&nbsp;app which could cause a lot of problems.<br /><h3></h3></div>John Chapmanhttps://plus.google.com/104152408681286149443noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1329265741756814847.post-17422009137464222262012-11-30T12:03:00.000+00:002014-02-28T13:05:13.509+00:00Bookstores - How to cash-in on ebooks!Bookshops everywhere are worried. There's a revolution going on and they are losing sales because of it. The revolution is that of ebooks!<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://mhpbooks.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Library-Ebook.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://mhpbooks.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Library-Ebook.jpg" height="202" width="320" /></a></div><br /><br />Oh I know there are those who say 'I love the feel and smell of a proper book' but these are mostly people who have not yet got an ebook reader. Once these people have got their hands on one it doesn't take long for them to change their minds. That means fewer sales of paper books.<br /><br />Yet we all still like going to the library and browsing the books in a bookstore. Having found the book we like do we then buy the paper format or simply make a note of it and look it up at Amazon later to get it in ebook format? I have to admit, I've done the latter many times but felt guilty that I've denied the bookseller a profit from the sale. He/she has, after all, helped me in my book purchase.<br /><br />So how can the bookstore make money from ebooks? I think there is an answer, and one which is simple to put in practice.<br /><br /><h3>How a bookstore can cash-in on ebooks</h3>The bookseller makes use of Amazon's affiliate program (or better still - Smashwords.) Here's how to do this:<br /><ol><li>If you, the bookseller, have not already joined Amazon's associate program then sign up for it at:<br />UK -&nbsp;https://affiliate-program.amazon.co.uk/<br />US -&nbsp;https://affiliate-program.amazon.com<br />Ca -&nbsp;https://associates.amazon.ca/</li><li>If you do not have a Twitter account then sign up for that at<br />https://twitter.com/</li><li>Add the site stripe to your Amazon account<br />https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/gp/associates/join/landing/tools.html</li><li>On your computer navigate to a book's page at Amazon and click the Twitter button on the associate site stripe toolbar<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-2JS5ebQPo2Q/ULiFHgBcJ6I/AAAAAAAAA68/wYw4s7PIaL0/s1600/SmallbooksellerQR002.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-2JS5ebQPo2Q/ULiFHgBcJ6I/AAAAAAAAA68/wYw4s7PIaL0/s640/SmallbooksellerQR002.jpg" height="347" width="640" /></a><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-2JS5ebQPo2Q/ULiFHgBcJ6I/AAAAAAAAA68/wYw4s7PIaL0/s1600/SmallbooksellerQR002.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></div>Copy the text as far as the 'via@...</li><li>Paste that text into a QL generator page on Internet. I use the QR Code generator at&nbsp;http://goqr.me/<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Zjx1sA9M_U0/ULiHLq-F1zI/AAAAAAAAA7E/P7KDm8B_br4/s1600/SmallbooksellerQR.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Zjx1sA9M_U0/ULiHLq-F1zI/AAAAAAAAA7E/P7KDm8B_br4/s640/SmallbooksellerQR.jpg" height="606" width="640" /></a>At this stage you can edit the text to include the price and any other details you wish to include.</div></li><li>Copy the QR code generated and paste it into Word for further editing as follows:<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-BLnfT9U-rHE/ULiPX1ySaVI/AAAAAAAAA7U/STV1lKpK06E/s1600/SmallbooksellerQR003.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-BLnfT9U-rHE/ULiPX1ySaVI/AAAAAAAAA7U/STV1lKpK06E/s400/SmallbooksellerQR003.jpg" height="235" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"></div></li><li>Print this out on a self adhesive label and fix it inside the back cover (or on the back if there's space). You might also need to make a few posters advertising your ebook service and where the customer can get a free QR code scanner app for their mobile phone. (Try <a href="http://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=la.droid.qr">QR Droid</a>)&nbsp;</li></ol><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CDvz4FwkKk4/ULiayD8TEPI/AAAAAAAAA7k/FTHHc-Cymbk/s1600/GEDC0200.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CDvz4FwkKk4/ULiayD8TEPI/AAAAAAAAA7k/FTHHc-Cymbk/s320/GEDC0200.JPG" height="297" width="320" /></a></div><div>Customers browsing your books can scan the QR codes and buy the books immediately using Amazon's 'one touch'. You get the&nbsp;commission&nbsp;on the sale.&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div>Of course there is no reason why this should be restricted to using Amazon as an ebook provider. If an author comes into your store promoting his/her books negotiate a deal with them to sell their ebooks through Smashwords - Not only do they support more reading devices but they provide a higher royalty rate to the author - 85% and the affiliate rate can be set so that you get a higher commission on the sale than you would get from Amazon 30-40% would seem fair.</div><div><br /></div><div>You might even end up making more money from ebooks than you do from paper books and you won't have to do a thing at the till!</div>John Chapmanhttps://plus.google.com/104152408681286149443noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1329265741756814847.post-54465888299802375142012-11-29T20:16:00.001+00:002012-12-29T06:35:15.936+00:00Toad in the holeThis post is especially for people from the US and is a recipe for a dish familiar in the UK called 'Toad in the Hole'. It's mentioned in our book '<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0047O2CQA/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=B0047O2CQA&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=jaydax08">A Vested Interest</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaydax08&amp;l=as2&amp;o=1&amp;a=B0047O2CQA" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />'<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-zCUr9paNMpc/ULfA-0IwMSI/AAAAAAAAA6s/pRKtLBKmSgo/s1600/toad_in_the_hole.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-zCUr9paNMpc/ULfA-0IwMSI/AAAAAAAAA6s/pRKtLBKmSgo/s320/toad_in_the_hole.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>"Yeucht!" you say, "I'm NOT going to eat a toad!"<br /><br />Don't worry because the recipe doesn't include any toads. Here's the ingredients:<br /><br /><ul><li>3 eggs</li><li>12 oz plain flour (1½ cups)</li><li>3½ cups milk</li><li>teaspoon of salt</li><li>6 sausages, thick links</li><li>vegetable fat eg. Crisco</li></ul><div>Put about 3 tablespoons of the vegetable fat in an ovenproof dish and put it in the oven at it's highest setting to melt.</div><div>While it's getting hot beat the eggs, flour, salt and milk to make a batter.</div><div>When the fat is hot take it out the oven and pour enough of the batter into the dish to cover it to a depth of half an inch. Return it to the oven to start cooking.</div><div>In a frying pan brown the sausages.</div><div>Once the batter in the oven has set, add the sausages and pour over them the rest of the batter. Return it to the oven to cook at 220 °C / 420 °F for 30 - 40 min.</div><div><br /></div><div>Serve with onion gravy and&nbsp;sliced&nbsp;green beans.</div><div><br /></div><div>Easy to make, inexpensive and totally delicious on a cold winter day.</div><div><br /></div><div>If you like this one, maybe I'll tell you how to make 'Spotted Dick.'</div><div><br /></div><div>Incidentally '<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0047O2CQA/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=B0047O2CQA&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=jaydax08">A Vested Interest</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaydax08&amp;l=as2&amp;o=1&amp;a=B0047O2CQA" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />' is a romantic suspense/technothriller and it's free at Amazon.com<br /><br /><h3>An extra bit - Pancakes</h3><div>Got too much batter? Pop it in the fridge and use it the next day to make some English pancakes. These will be little like those served in the US.</div><div><br /></div><iframe allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/tY9k6qPsXis" width="420"></iframe> <div>Use a small frying pan on a high heat. To it add a small knob of vegetable fat or sunflower oil. Once it's melted add about a tablespoon of the batter and swirl it round to cover the base of the pan thinly. Let the batter set then flip it over - it should be golden brown on the 'done' side. Of course an expert, (ex as in useless; spurt as in drip under pressure), would toss the pancake to flip it over but don't be ashamed to use a spatula.</div><div>I use the old Yorkshire expression 'When it's brown, it's done; when it's black it's bu**&amp;rd'.</div><div>When both sides are cooked pop it on a plate in the oven to keep warm while you cook the rest of the batter.</div><div><br /></div><div>To serve the pancakes, drizzle on some lemon juice and sprinkle them with sugar. (No-one said this was going to be a healthy recipe!)</div><div><br /></div><div>Alternatively you could spread on some pie filling and cream before rolling up the pancakes.</div><div><br /></div><div>Posh name for this style of pancake is&nbsp;<a class="l" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cr%C3%AApe_Suzette" style="color: #1122cc; cursor: pointer; font-family: arial, sans-serif; white-space: nowrap;" wotsearchprocessed="true"><em style="font-style: normal; font-weight: bold;">Crêpe Suzette</em></a></div><br /></div><br /><br />John Chapmanhttps://plus.google.com/104152408681286149443noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1329265741756814847.post-80676560878196253532012-10-21T03:30:00.000+01:002014-01-18T01:19:07.605+00:00eBook pricesA little while ago I read a letter in Web User complaining about the prices of books at Amazon and that Amazon was making a huge profit because of this. The complainant said they could not afford to buy books for their Kindle because of these inflated prices. I felt I had to reply in defence of Amazon. Here's my reply which was printed in the 18th October 2012 issue of Web User:<br /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"></span><br /><div style="text-align: right;"></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-GH_19Faz5uU/Uji0BHua-LI/AAAAAAAACYs/W-Oi-MmHNHA/s1600/WebUser.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-GH_19Faz5uU/Uji0BHua-LI/AAAAAAAACYs/W-Oi-MmHNHA/s320/WebUser.jpg" height="320" width="228" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://amzn.to/1aR0jFx">Web User Magazine</a></td></tr></tbody></table><ul><span style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">In issue 301 a reader wrote that they were disgusted by Kindle book prices. I have to say, as an author, that is&nbsp;</span><i style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">NOT</i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">&nbsp;Amazon's fault! With one exception Amazon lets the author or publisher set the price of an ebook. The exception being that they will not allow an author to set a book price of less than $0.99 which in the UK means a price of £0.77 on average.</span></ul><span style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">First there are two different types of publisher: The independent (Indie) author and the conventional publishing industry who make their books available as ebooks. <img alt="" border="0" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=jaydax08&amp;l=as2&amp;o=1&amp;a=B00C5R73JC" height="1" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />It's the latter who keep their prices high and on occasion you'll find their ebooks more expensive than printed books due to discounting by the retailer. It's in their interest to do so if they want to keep their printing industry alive.</span><br /><ul><span style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">The Indie authors again fall into two groups: Successful authors with established, best selling printed books and new authors with a limited offering of printed books (or none at all). A proven best selling author can make more money from selling ebooks than from printed books. They keep their prices high but less than the cost of a printed book. The newish indie author has to get their name recognised and climb up the publishing ladder. There are millions of them competing for your money and prices tend to be low.</span></ul><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00F225YK2/ref=as_li_ss_il?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=B00F225YK2&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=jaydax08" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&amp;ASIN=B00F225YK2&amp;Format=_SL110_&amp;ID=AsinImage&amp;MarketPlace=US&amp;ServiceVersion=20070822&amp;WS=1&amp;tag=jaydax08" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">$2.99</td></tr></tbody></table><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00C5R73JC/ref=as_li_ss_il?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=B00C5R73JC&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=jaydax08" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&amp;ASIN=B00C5R73JC&amp;Format=_SL110_&amp;ID=AsinImage&amp;MarketPlace=US&amp;ServiceVersion=20070822&amp;WS=1&amp;tag=jaydax08" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">$12.56</td></tr></tbody></table><ul><img alt="" border="0" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=jaydax08&amp;l=as2&amp;o=1&amp;a=B00F225YK2" height="1" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">To keep indie authors from cutting their own throats, and to allow Amazon to make money, Amazon will not allow an indie author to set a price of less that $0.99. They pay a royalty of 35% on that which on a $0.99 book amounts to $0.35 (about 21p). If the author sets their book price at $2.99 to $9.99 then Amazon offer a royalty of 70% after deducting a delivery charge which covers 3G delivery. On an 80,000 word $2.99 book with a $0.08 delivery charge that means a royalty of $2.04 (£1.26). In the UK that book would cost £1.90 and would include 3% Luxembourg VAT (Note - Going up to 20% in Jan 2015). You would have to pay delivery on top since it would not qualify for free delivery.</span></ul><ul><span style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">As to the costs of producing an ebook - if you go it alone, the cost can be zero. If you can't do all of the steps yourself you may need to pay for line editing ($0.02 per word), ebook formatting ($80-$150), cover design ($40-$200). Relatively few authors have all the necessary skills and as a result you'll see some poor quality ebooks from authors who can't afford to pay the professional. Conventional printing houses have to pay for a professional to do these tasks. If they cut corners (as some do) - complain loudly!</span></ul><ul><span style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Amazon are&nbsp;</span><i style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">NOT</i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">&nbsp;the only source of ebooks though. You can download ebooks in Kindle format from&nbsp;</span><a href="http://www.smashwords.com/" style="background-color: white; color: rgb(30, 91, 168) !important; cursor: pointer; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Smashwords</a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">,&nbsp;</span><a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/" style="background-color: white; color: rgb(30, 91, 168) !important; cursor: pointer; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Project Gutenberg</a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">,&nbsp;</span><a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/" style="background-color: white; color: rgb(30, 91, 168) !important; cursor: pointer; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Autharium</a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">&nbsp;and others. Project Gutenberg books are out of copyright and free. Smashwords allows the author to give away a book free. Authors often give away the first book in a series to encourage the reader to invest in the rest and hopefully to get Amazon to 'price match'.</span></ul><span style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><br /><h3><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Free Books</span></span></h3><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-2d8UlpDGvIs/Upm1vC0fyPI/AAAAAAAACcc/Baxr_r33w9g/s1600/ImmortalityGene200x320Free.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-2d8UlpDGvIs/Upm1vC0fyPI/AAAAAAAACcc/Baxr_r33w9g/s1600/ImmortalityGene200x320Free.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Get it at Amazon <a href="http://smarturl.it/avi">http://smarturl.it/avi</a></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Now what I didn't cover in my response was just why an author, who normally wants to make money from their work, would give away some of their books? How can that possibly make them money? The Amazon 'Select' program allows authors to give away a book free for just five days every 90 days. The author hopes it might get their name known a little and if the reader enjoys the book, they might write a review or better still, recommend it to their friends, which will help the author sell more books when the 'Free' offer no longer applies. To join the Select program the author must agree to give Amazon the exclusive rights to sell the ebook for 90 days.</span></span><br /><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Does this actually work? Well it does and it doesn't. Thousands of authors have added books to the program and millions of books have been given away. The number of reviews written is tiny compared with that number though. Many Kindle readers are still not aware of the free books available because Amazon do not&nbsp;</span>publicise<span style="font-family: inherit;">&nbsp;where they are on the site and leave it up to the author to do this. The original letter writer to Web User obviously was not aware of the free books available.</span></span><br /><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span><br /><h3><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Free books for the reader</span></span></h3><br /><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">If you are a reader you can find free books by searching for 'free ebooks' on the kindle page or you can follow one of these links:</span></span><br /><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">US/Canada (amazon.com) -&nbsp;</span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">&nbsp;</span><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Kindle-Store-eBooks/zgbs/digital-text/154606011/ref=zg_bs_nav_kstore_1_kstore" style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; text-decoration: none;">http://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Kindle-Store-eBooks/zgbs/digital-text/154606011/ref=zg_bs_nav_kstore_1_kstore</a><br />UK -&nbsp;<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">&nbsp;</span><a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bestsellers-Kindle-Store-eBooks/zgbs/digital-text/341689031/ref=zg_bs_nav_kinc_1_kinc" style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; text-decoration: none;">http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bestsellers-Kindle-Store-eBooks/zgbs/digital-text/341689031/ref=zg_bs_nav_kinc_1_kinc</a><br />Navigate to the genre you want at the left of the page and select 'Top 100 Free' at the top.<br /><br /><h3>Free books and the author</h3>If you are an author, it's up to you to promote your free ebook. It will appear as Free on the books page/s and you can then make the link known in your publicity. Do nothing and you are unlikely to see a result from your free offer. A good page, telling how to publicise your free promotion was written by&nbsp;<span style="color: #666666; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">&nbsp;</span><span class="author vcard" style="color: #666666; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;"><span class="fn"><a class="fn n" href="http://indiereviewtracker.com/author/karincox/" rel="author" style="color: #056f88; text-decoration: none;" title="Karin Cox">Karin Cox</a>&nbsp;at&nbsp;</span></span><a href="http://indiereviewtracker.com/making-your-e-book-free/">http://indiereviewtracker.com/making-your-e-book-free/</a><br /><br /><h4>Kindle Select Program</h4>So when does the Kindle Select program work for authors?<br /><br /><ul><li>It works when you have more than one book available for readers to buy</li><li>It works when the book made free is the first book of a series</li><li>It works if you heavily promote the free offer in <i>advance</i>, <i>during </i>the promotion and <i>after </i>the promotion</li><li>It works when your free book contains links to the other books</li><li>It works when you leave a message to readers at the end of your book inviting them to leave a review at Amazon</li><li>It works if you don't mind restricting your book to Amazon sales outlets</li></ul><div><h4>Alternatives to Kindle Select</h4>Are there alternatives to Kindle Select? Indeed there are. Smashwords allows an author to set their book price as free on a temporary or on a permanent basis. They distribute books to other sites, making them available at iTunes (iBooks), and to Nook, Kobo and other readers. A free book at Smashwords will be made free at these other sites also. Smashwords also allows you to set a price for your book but to give away codes which make the book free to those with the code. Great for prizes, promotions and free review copies. Smashwords isn't the only alternative&nbsp;distributor. Try BookTango.com also. Publishing your book to Smashwords and making it free is a great idea for the first book in a series. Sooner or later Amazon will find out about this lower price and will 'price match' the Amazon copy. It may take months for this to occur though. My co-author and I went through this process months ago with our A Vested Interest series. Book 1 was made free at Smashwords. After about two months Amazon price matched it at <a href="http://amzn.to/QTkV6N">amazon.com</a>&nbsp; It took more than five months for it to be made it free at <a href="http://amzn.to/11q4nVH">amazon.co.uk</a> though, so for a while we had to set it at 77p there (the minimum allowed). Sales of the rest of the books in the series took an immediate jump once Amazon.com price matched. For a while the reverse was true for Amazon.co.uk where there appeared to be some resentment that the first book wasn't free! (If you live in the UK, it's free now and you can also<i>&nbsp;</i>get A Vested Interest free from a number of sources listed <a href="http://www.jaydax.co.uk/avestedinterest/buy.htm">here</a>)</div><div><br /></div><div><h3>32 cent (20p) Books</h3>One last bit of information. In late 2012 a court case has meant that Amazon can now discount ebooks as special offers. This is good news for readers, who can buy books for as little as&nbsp;20p&nbsp;(32¢). It's good news for the author too since they get the same royalty as usual and not just a percentage of the discounted price.<br /><br />How to find them at Amazon? Just type into Amazon.co.uk's search bar '20p kindle books' and scan through the list of books found. If you live in the US and find a book you want then change the .co.uk in the address bar to .com and you should find what you want.<br /><br /><h4>Found a book that's free in the US but not in the UK?</h4>Try looking the book up at Smashwords. Often a book has been made free worldwide but Amazon have not yet price matched it. If you find it free or at a lower price - tell Amazon.co.uk about it!</div><div><br /></div><br /><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>John Chapmanhttps://plus.google.com/104152408681286149443noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1329265741756814847.post-50961371708986195982012-10-16T16:53:00.000+01:002012-10-16T16:57:38.373+01:00How long should a book chapter be?<h4>Who cares?</h4>Before I started writing professionally I really didn't care how long a chapter should be. For non fiction, the answer was simple - a chapter should cover a topic completely. Imagine a world guide to travelling where you visit fifty countries. You would expect each country would have it's own chapter. That seems pretty logical to me.<br /><br />Fiction is entirely different though. What makes up a chapter? How long should it be? Does the length matter? The more I looked into it, the more I realised that it may be important.<br /><br /><h4>Consider how and when people read.</h4><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-gkZe46goYa8/UH1lDIzAZrI/AAAAAAAAA5U/cQFB0Dyz3C0/s1600/Reading+in+bed.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="177" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-gkZe46goYa8/UH1lDIzAZrI/AAAAAAAAA5U/cQFB0Dyz3C0/s320/Reading+in+bed.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">In the BBC sitcom 'My Family' Ben Harper (Robert Lindsay)<br />&nbsp;read Tom &nbsp;Clancy books in bed, appearing to take a year<br />to&nbsp;finish each book.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><ul><li>Some sit down for an extended period of time and read a book all in one sitting because they are totally&nbsp;engrossed&nbsp;by it. (Please - Powers that be, send me more readers like that!)</li><li>Some read in bed before they go to sleep</li><li>Some read in those quiet times of the day</li><li>Some snatch a few minutes at various times while they are busy</li><li>Some read to relax and wind down</li><li>Some read paper books</li><li>Some read ebooks on an e-reader or their phone</li><li>Some read ebooks on a computer</li></ul><div>Next consider how fast they read. It seems an average reader, reading fiction has a reading speed of about 200-240 words per minute or a little less than a page. This reading speed drops when reading non-fiction, where comprehension and retention is more important. It also drops when reading on a computer screen - e-readers don't appear to suffer from this effect.</div><div><br /></div><div>If you want to measure your reading speed and comprehension I found a page at&nbsp;<b style="display: inline !important; height: 1px; left: -999px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; position: absolute; top: -999px; width: 1px;">http://</b></div><a href="http://bit.ly/OENAKs">bit.ly/OENAKs</a>&nbsp;which allows you to test your reading speed.<br /><div><br /></div><div>So let's take the scenario of a reader reading a paper novel in a break at work.</div><div><ul><li>They have perhaps 10 minutes</li><li>They read at 200 words per minute</li><li>It's not vital that they remember everything</li><li>They don't have a bookmark with them</li><li>They don't want to spend five minutes finding their place</li></ul>Under such a situation you need to keep a chapter to 2,000 words or about &nbsp;eight pages. Less is probably better.</div><div><br /></div><div>Ebooks have changed the game. They remember your place in a book so there is no searching for your place. There is still that "I'll just finish this chapter," effect though. A good author needs to finish the chapter with a 'hook' to make sure the reader comes back and reads the next one rather than put the book down and forget it.</div><h4>...and that means</h4><div>Keep your chapters short - maybe five pages.</div><div>Try to finish each chapter with enough of a cliffhanger to make your reader want to continue.</div><div><br /></div><div>Now the question is am I right? Do you think shorter chapters are better? We've&nbsp;certainly&nbsp;tried to do this in the later books of the <a href="http://bit.ly/OEQkYb">A Vested Interest series</a>.</div><div><br /></div>John Chapmanhttps://plus.google.com/104152408681286149443noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1329265741756814847.post-75080136928508891132012-08-29T21:33:00.000+01:002017-02-06T13:38:41.267+00:00What's the 'A Vested Interest' series about?<img align="right" alt="The FREE book Immortality Gene. Immortality can be achieved." border="0" src="https://ws.assoc-amazon.co.uk/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&amp;ASIN=B0047O2CQA&amp;Format=_SL110_&amp;ID=AsinImage&amp;MarketPlace=GB&amp;ServiceVersion=20070822&amp;WS=1&amp;tag=jaydaxdesigns-21" title="Immortality Gene" /><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="https://www.assoc-amazon.co.uk/e/ir?t=jaydaxdesigns-21&amp;l=as2&amp;o=2&amp;a=B0047O2CQA" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" /><span style="font-family: inherit;">People ask us "What are your books about?" often. It's a little difficult to explain because we cover multiple genres. One of our reviewers wrote:<br /></span><br /><ol><a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B004SP6N3Q/ref=as_li_ss_il?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1634&amp;creative=19450&amp;creativeASIN=B004SP6N3Q&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=jaydaxdesigns-21" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><br /></a><a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B004SP6N3Q/ref=as_li_ss_il?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1634&amp;creative=19450&amp;creativeASIN=B004SP6N3Q&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=jaydaxdesigns-21" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img align="right" alt="Not everyone who appears good is actually good—some have dark secrets" border="0" src="https://ws.assoc-amazon.co.uk/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&amp;ASIN=B004SP6N3Q&amp;Format=_SL110_&amp;ID=AsinImage&amp;MarketPlace=GB&amp;ServiceVersion=20070822&amp;WS=1&amp;tag=jaydaxdesigns-21" title="A Vested Interest book 2 - Dark Secrets" /></a><i><span style="font-family: inherit;">"<span style="background-color: white;">It is a story of corporate jealousy at the highest levels, greed, spite, vengence, advanced techonology, medicine, love and betrayal, and the very essence of life itself.</span></span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br style="background-color: white;" /><span style="background-color: white;">WOW - that is a lot to cover in one book! Read this book - you will be glad you did."</span></span></i></ol><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white;">Thank you&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/pdp/profile/AI9Y3W3AJ4383/ref=cm_cr_pr_pdp" target="_blank">Ancient Warlock</a>. That pretty well sums it up. But that only refers to the first book... so here's a list of things we cover in the series in the 12 books so far (some not yet published).</span></span><br /><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="https://www.assoc-amazon.co.uk/e/ir?t=jaydaxdesigns-21&amp;l=as2&amp;o=2&amp;a=B004SP6N3Q" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" /><br /><ul><a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00537SFBG/ref=as_li_ss_il?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1634&amp;creative=19450&amp;creativeASIN=B00537SFBG&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=jaydaxdesigns-21" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00537SFBG/ref=as_li_ss_il?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1634&amp;creative=19450&amp;creativeASIN=B00537SFBG&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=jaydaxdesigns-21" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B005DJ0TO0/ref=as_li_ss_il?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1634&amp;creative=19450&amp;creativeASIN=B005DJ0TO0&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=jaydaxdesigns-21" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img align="right" alt="An ancient message reveals startling secrets leading to stones, stars and solutions" border="0" src="https://ws.assoc-amazon.co.uk/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&amp;ASIN=B005DJ0TO0&amp;Format=_SL110_&amp;ID=AsinImage&amp;MarketPlace=GB&amp;ServiceVersion=20070822&amp;WS=1&amp;tag=jaydaxdesigns-21" title="Stones, Stars and Solutions" /></a></div><li>Through genetic therapy, immortality may be possible and real for 98%.</li><li><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="background-color: white;">Through nanotechnology, force fields could be created.</span></span></li><li><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="background-color: white;">For each of us, there is a partner who is a perfect match and several near matches. You'll know when you find your perfect match, and <i>think </i>ou'll know when you find a near match.</span></span></li><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="https://www.assoc-amazon.co.uk/e/ir?t=jaydaxdesigns-21&amp;l=as2&amp;o=2&amp;a=B00537SFBG" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" /><li><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="background-color: white;">Ancient documents indicate the Earth has been visited by benign aliens who helped Man and left, because they were not gods, after setting up markers.</span></span></li><li><a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00537SFBG/ref=as_li_ss_il?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1634&amp;creative=19450&amp;creativeASIN=B00537SFBG&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=jaydaxdesigns-21" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><br /></a><a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00537SFBG/ref=as_li_ss_il?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1634&amp;creative=19450&amp;creativeASIN=B00537SFBG&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=jaydaxdesigns-21" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><br /></a><img align="right" alt="For trust to exist there can be no secrets. Not everyone who appears bad is bad." border="0" src="https://ws.assoc-amazon.co.uk/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&amp;ASIN=B00537SFBG&amp;Format=_SL110_&amp;ID=AsinImage&amp;MarketPlace=GB&amp;ServiceVersion=20070822&amp;WS=1&amp;tag=jaydaxdesigns-21" title="No Secrets" /><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="background-color: white;">Forget governments, there is a secret organisation which is the real directing power on Earth. Politicians take the blame when things go wrong and make good targets to shoot at. There is <i>always </i>someone unhappy at the 'leaders.'</span></span></li><li><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="background-color: white;">With the right triggers, weather could be controlled, but that control would be tenuous.</span></span></li><li><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="background-color: white;">The Earth is doomed - but not yet.</span></span></li><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="https://www.assoc-amazon.co.uk/e/ir?t=jaydaxdesigns-21&amp;l=as2&amp;o=2&amp;a=B005DJ0TO0" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" /><li><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="background-color: white;">Faster than light travel is possible.</span></span></li><li><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="background-color: white;">Teleportation exists. For the moment, Man can't control it, but we have some ideas.</span></span></li><li><a href="https://images-blogger-opensocial.googleusercontent.com/gadgets/proxy?url=http%3A%2F%2Fws.assoc-amazon.co.uk%2Fwidgets%2Fq%3F_encoding%3DUTF8%26ASIN%3DB005OBMQN4%26Format%3D_SL110_%26ID%3DAsinImage%26MarketPlace%3DGB%26ServiceVersion%3D20070822%26WS%3D1%26tag%3Djaydaxdesigns-21&amp;container=blogger&amp;gadget=a&amp;rewriteMime=image%2F*" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img align="right" alt="There are times when taking a leap of faith is the only way." border="0" src="https://ws.assoc-amazon.co.uk/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&amp;ASIN=B005OBMQN4&amp;Format=_SL110_&amp;ID=AsinImage&amp;MarketPlace=GB&amp;ServiceVersion=20070822&amp;WS=1&amp;tag=jaydaxdesigns-21" title="Leap of Faith" /></a><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="background-color: white;">Telepathy exists, and we know how it works.</span></span></li><li><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="background-color: white;">Psychics may not, after all, be entirely fake.</span></span></li><li><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="background-color: white;">It's possible to totally, and safely convert matter to energy but to do it, a catalyst is needed. Man can't create the catalyst yet. It doesn't occur naturally. There are at least 27 samples of it on Earth 20 of which are lost.</span></span></li><li><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="background-color: white;">Just as there are benign aliens, there are hostile aliens happy to be 'gods'. They would take advantage of man.</span></span></li><li><a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B007VCEXV2/ref=as_li_ss_il?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1634&amp;creative=19450&amp;creativeASIN=B007VCEXV2&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=jaydaxdesigns-21"><img align="right" alt="Everyone has regrets and retribution inevitably follows" border="0" src="https://ws.assoc-amazon.co.uk/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&amp;ASIN=B007VCEXV2&amp;Format=_SL110_&amp;ID=AsinImage&amp;MarketPlace=GB&amp;ServiceVersion=20070822&amp;WS=1&amp;tag=jaydaxdesigns-21" title="Regret and Retribution" /></a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="https://www.assoc-amazon.co.uk/e/ir?t=jaydaxdesigns-21&amp;l=as2&amp;o=2&amp;a=B007VCEXV2" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" /><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="background-color: white;">Three days after death stem cells become active again. Under the right conditions a corpse could re-animate. Zombies?</span></span></li></ul><div><span style="background-color: white;">Finally, here's a complete list of the series in order (because Amazon isn't very good at putting things in chronological order). It includes some books not yet available.</span></div><div><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="https://www.assoc-amazon.co.uk/e/ir?t=jaydaxdesigns-21&amp;l=as2&amp;o=2&amp;a=B005OBMQN4" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" /><br /><ol><li><span style="background-color: white;">Blood of the Rainbow- Raging Storm - a&nbsp;prequel&nbsp;written by Shelia</span></li><li><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008QFC7ES/ref=as_li_ss_il?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=B008QFC7ES&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=jaydax08"><img align="right" alt="Every action has consequences. How is one to make the right choice?" border="0" src="https://ws.assoc-amazon.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&amp;ASIN=B008QFC7ES&amp;Format=_SL110_&amp;ID=AsinImage&amp;MarketPlace=US&amp;ServiceVersion=20070822&amp;WS=1&amp;tag=jaydax08" title="Consequences" /></a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="https://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaydax08&amp;l=as2&amp;o=1&amp;a=B008QFC7ES" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" /><span style="background-color: white;">Blood of the Rainbow II - Roses and Regret - the second of the prequel trilogy.</span></li><li><span style="background-color: white;">Blood of the Rainbow III - Choice and Change - the final book in the prequel trilogy</span></li><li><span style="background-color: white;">A Vested Interest - The original book 1, and a good place to start. It's free everywhere! (occasionally not free at Amazon UK/Ca)</span></li><li><span style="background-color: white;">Dark Secrets</span></li><li><span style="background-color: white;">No secrets</span></li><li><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-9HZtjcrnc88/WJhyPFl5_qI/AAAAAAAAFFM/ueAGdA5Mg24mo187P4zOghvfiXQUPOQBwCLcB/s1600/AshestoAshesEbook72x115.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><br /></a><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-9HZtjcrnc88/WJhyPFl5_qI/AAAAAAAAFFM/ueAGdA5Mg24mo187P4zOghvfiXQUPOQBwCLcB/s1600/AshestoAshesEbook72x115.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="Even with the best of motives your choices can have dire consequences" border="0" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-9HZtjcrnc88/WJhyPFl5_qI/AAAAAAAAFFM/ueAGdA5Mg24mo187P4zOghvfiXQUPOQBwCLcB/s1600/AshestoAshesEbook72x115.jpg" title="Ashes to Ashes" /></a><span style="background-color: white;">Stones, Stars and Solutions - Another possible starting point - especially if you like puzzles</span></li><li><span style="background-color: white;">Leap of Faith</span></li><li><span style="background-color: white;">Regret and Retribution</span></li><li><span style="background-color: white;">Consequences</span></li><li><span style="background-color: white;">Ashes to Ashes&nbsp;</span></li><li><span style="background-color: white;">Dust to Dust&nbsp;</span></li><li><span style="background-color: white;">String to the Stars (in development)</span></li></ol><div><span style="background-color: white;">Of the currently available books we suggest you read them in order 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 1</span><span style="background-color: white;">, 2, 3</span><span style="background-color: white;">, 9, 10, 11,12</span><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nBvZHV-z7y0/WJh6RbDSihI/AAAAAAAAFFg/vwd0t1fB6zcMACZtRLGIihifP_hb0lpzACLcB/s1600/DustToDustE72x115.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="Three days after death 'dust to dust' might not be so final." border="0" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nBvZHV-z7y0/WJh6RbDSihI/AAAAAAAAFFg/vwd0t1fB6zcMACZtRLGIihifP_hb0lpzACLcB/s1600/DustToDustE72x115.jpg" title="Dust to Dust" /></a></div><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white;">The first book is FREE at <a href="http://www.amazon.com/A-Vested-Interest-ebook/dp/B0047O2CQA/">Amazon.com</a>, <a href="https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/180258" target="_blank">Smashwords</a>, <a href="http://ebookstore.sony.com/ebook/john-and-shelia-chapman/a-vested-interest/_/R-400000000000000764469" target="_blank">Sony</a>, <a href="http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/vested-interest-john-and-shelia-chapman/1102700645?ean=2940044744868&amp;format=nook-book" target="_blank">Barnes &amp; Noble</a> and <a href="http://itunes.apple.com/gb/book/a-vested-interest/id550312609?mt=11" target="_blank">iBooks</a>. &nbsp;Click the book thumbnails to find them at Amazon.</span></div></div><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />John Chapmanhttps://plus.google.com/104152408681286149443noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1329265741756814847.post-13040691326320679892012-08-03T22:00:00.000+01:002014-01-10T08:35:46.698+00:00Getting the best from your KindleI recently read a letter from someone in the UK who moaned that he couldn't get library books in ebook format suitable for his kindle. If he had bought a reader such as the Kobo which uses epub format he would have been able to do so. The writer went on to complain he couldn't afford to keep buying ebooks from Amazon.<br /><br />It struck me that this was a reader who wasn't using his Kindle to best effect. He may not be able to borrow Kindle library books in the UK (That service is available in the US) but there are a huge number of free ebooks available on the Kindle, some from Amazon, but many more from other sites. With the addition of the free <a href="http://calibre-ebook.com/" target="_blank">Calibre e-book management software</a> you can install these books on your kindle, convert them from other formats and even make your own books from a word processed file or web page. Email the file to your Kindle e-mail address or use your Kindle power lead to connect it to your computer and use Calibre's Send to device button. Not know your Kindle e-mail address? You can find it from &nbsp;the Home screen using menu &gt; Settings &gt; Send-to-Kindle E-mail (2nd page). <br /><br />So where do you get all these free e-books? Let's start with an easy one - Amazon itself. Amazingly many people can't find the freebies because Amazon don't make the links obvious. Here's a start:<br /><br /><ul><li>Amazon UK -&nbsp; <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bestsellers-Kindle-Store-eBooks/zgbs/digital-text/341689031/ref=zg_bs_nav_kinc_1_kinc">http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bestsellers-Kindle-Store-eBooks/zgbs/digital-text/341689031/ref=zg_bs_nav_kinc_1_kinc</a></li><li>Amazon US -&nbsp; <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Kindle-Store-eBooks/zgbs/digital-text/154606011/ref=zg_bs_nav_kstore_1_kstore">http://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Kindle-Store-eBooks/zgbs/digital-text/154606011/ref=zg_bs_nav_kstore_1_kstore</a></li></ul><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-_FDJ_ffiWl8/Us-vI6LakcI/AAAAAAAACfw/EJDNB0noA_g/s1600/FreeAmazon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-_FDJ_ffiWl8/Us-vI6LakcI/AAAAAAAACfw/EJDNB0noA_g/s1600/FreeAmazon.jpg" height="240" width="400" /></a></div>Notice the 'Top 100 Free' at the right? Check also the links at the left which allow to refine your search for free ebooks.<br /><br />If you want an older 'classic' book there's no need to buy it. Look for it at <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/" target="_blank">Project Gutenberg</a>. This site aims to make electronic copies of all out of copyright books. For most countries that means more than 70 years old books. Their books are available in multiple formats including the Kindle .mobi format. If you find a book not available in .mobi format get it in another format (though preferably not as a .pdf) and use Calibre to convert it to Kindle format.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.smashwords.com/" target="_blank">Smashwords</a>&nbsp;is another source of free e-books. Look for the 'Free' link at the top of the page in the Price row. Again at the left you'll find a menu allowing you to select the genre and there's a search box to find a specific book or author. Once you've found a book you'll need to register at the site but Smashwords won't ask for payment details if the book is free.<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-5rhv-_7mWDs/Us-wQ1Ly_OI/AAAAAAAACf8/mrviY_OAGy4/s1600/FreeSmashwords.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-5rhv-_7mWDs/Us-wQ1Ly_OI/AAAAAAAACf8/mrviY_OAGy4/s1600/FreeSmashwords.jpg" height="170" width="400" /></a></div><br /><br />Is that enough? No? Try <a href="http://feedbooks.com/help/kindle">http://feedbooks.com/help/kindle</a>&nbsp;<span style="background-color: white;">This site allows you to download free ebooks direct to your Kindle - no sending by wire from your computer needed</span><br /><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white;">Still not enough? Then do a search for 'free kindle ebooks' and find more sources.</span><br /><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white;">Now for some things you may not know about the original Kindles.</span><br /><br /><ul><li>They work on a limited version of the Linux operating system and some of the original Linux items are still there. On a Kindle Keyboard, press Alt Shift M on the home screen and you'll get a game of Minesweeper; If you are in Minesweeper press G and the game will change to GoMoku; In the search box you can get the Kindle to act as a calculator. Just type in what you want it to evaluate;&nbsp;</li><li>Want to read in the bath, on the beach or at a pool? Put your Kindle in a ziplock plastic bag. In the UK Tesco sell a small bag pack of 25 which are perfect. If you are concerned about the zip leaking, use two bags, one inside the other with a bit of kitchen towel between them at the back. Your standard Kindle or Kindle keyboard and Kindle Fire will work just fine but to get the Touch to work you'll need to blow in a bit of air to keep the bag away from the screen. No more soggy paperback books!</li></ul>John Chapmanhttps://plus.google.com/104152408681286149443noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1329265741756814847.post-84223704297842768222012-04-15T11:29:00.000+01:002016-08-14T14:46:45.719+01:00If humans were immortal...<br /><div style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.496094); font-family: 'Adobe Garamond Pro'; font-size: 23px; text-align: left; text-shadow: rgb(0, 191, 255) 0.02em 0.01em 0em;">Suppose you became aware that through genetic therapy almost all humans were now immortal (but not vampires). Not only that but disease virtually disappeared and tissue regenerated so that, over time, everyone appeared about age 25. We suggested this in our book series '<a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0047O2CQA/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=jaydaxdesigns-21&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1634&amp;creative=19450&amp;creativeASIN=B0047O2CQA">A Vested Interest</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="https://www.assoc-amazon.co.uk/e/ir?t=jaydaxdesigns-21&amp;l=as2&amp;o=2&amp;a=B0047O2CQA" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />'. What would be the effect?</div><ul style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.496094); font-family: 'Adobe Garamond Pro'; font-size: 23px; text-align: left;"><li>The book suggests a lifetime of 1729 years. That's not immortal but assumes a human will stay healthy until killed by an accident, starvation, war, an '<a href="http://jaydax.blogspot.com/2008/10/last-sound.html">Extinction Level Event</a>' (ELE) or some other overwhelming event. According to insurance tables that would happen on average in 1729 years.</li><li>Damaged tissue would be regenerated. An amputee would re-grow a limb, hair would re-grow on the bald, lost teeth would be replaced and body parts lost through surgery would be replaced. That includes contraceptive surgery! Cosmetic surgery would be stable if it was to repair physical or age damage but would reverse if it were done to change appearance.</li><li>What would happen to the population of the world? The population could be expected to soar initially putting a huge strain on the food supply and the demand for resources and energy. Many millions would starve. However, gradually the desperate 'urge' driving us to reproduce and replace ourselves would be brought under control - we would, after all, have plenty of time for that 'later' when we felt more secure. Eventually the population would be brought under control at a level a great deal higher than it is now.</li><li>Food would be scarce initially but again this would be resolved as more areas became cultivated including sea farms, 'arid' areas and underground. It's likely that new food sources would be developed including bacterial cultures, fungal sources and direct synthesis. Cellulose from plants. Wheat straw, bamboo, kelp and grasses would be converted to edible food. <a href="http://avestedinterest.info/technology.htm#culturedmeat" target="_blank">Cultured meat</a> would be produced on a large scale - that's real meat grown in a lab without killing the animal it was sourced from.</li><li>Water would be scarce in many areas for some time. A grid taking water from where it is plentiful to other areas would eventually be created.</li><li>The natural inclination would be to fight for food, land and resources. Initially that's exactly what would happen but we would eventually learn that cooperation produces better results.</li><li>Soldiers would think twice before fighting for any other principles - it is one thing to give up 30-40 years of life but an entirely different thing to give up 1000+ years. Those who didn't see things this way would probably not be missed!</li><li>A career would probably not be a lifetime decision. It would be changed many times. You would not want to stay in a hated job and would have plenty of time to learn new skills. The demand for education would be high as older generations go back to school to learn new skills. As far as normal K12 education was concerned the pressure would be off and there would be more time for 'fun' in school with lessons being devoted to leisure activities. K12 would become K15 or maybe even more?</li><li>Politicians would want to remain in power for much longer, the climb up the political ladder would be much harder. Maybe we would someday elect '<a href="http://jaydax.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/how-to-fix-mess-government-is-in.html" target="_blank">reluctant politicians</a>' who would see it as their civic duty to serve for a time rather than out of a desire for power. After all; anyone who wants to lead a country is probably the last person you should give the job to!</li><li>Premeditated crimes of violence would eventually decrease. Those inclined to violence would, over time, be eliminated from the gene pool by that very violence. Crimes of passion would no doubt continue!</li><li>The urge to move to a better place would be overwhelming - even if that meant transforming a harsh environment to make it liveable.</li><li>Undersea and underground communities would be set up - anywhere there is space available. The Earth's surface might eventually become a park for leisure.</li><li>Space would be colonised; the Moon and asteroids first, followed by Mars, the satellites of other planets and finally other solar systems.</li><li>Raw materials and energy would be at a premium. Both will cause problems initially but will be solved as nuclear fusion, deep robotic mining and resources from space become available.</li><li>Waste heat would become a major problem. Much of it will be recycled though.</li><li>Recycling of waste would be a major industry.</li><li>Concerns about global warming would soar for a while then prove unfounded as people realise that sea levels just are not rising. and the temperature starts to fall around 2040 as we enter the next ice age. (Try reading Michael Crichton's '<a href="http://amzn.to/2aU3lO0" target="_blank">State of Fear</a>'). The drive to reduce carbon emissions would continue though since we wouldn't be able to burn fossil fuels needed as raw materials.</li><li>Technology will continue to develop at an ever faster rate. Computers and nanotechnology especially. Look forward to a personal computer you can talk to, carry with you, display within your eyes and hear through your teeth!</li><li>The average intelligence of the population would increase slowly. A surprising number of 'Darwin Award' candidates would fail to breed.</li><li>Most medical staff apart from those dealing with accidents and research would be out of a job. An end perhaps to the ridiculous hours they work?</li><li>Retirement and pensions would be a thing of the past. The working week would be shorter and holidays longer.</li><li>There would be less 'haste' in everyday life. You now have 'plenty of time'.</li><li>Leisure demand would soar.</li><li>Drug companies would mostly convert to biotechnology, go out of business or convert to supplying chemical resources and producing food.</li><li>People would have an increased awareness of natural disasters and put more energy into averting them.</li><li>Languages would be less of a problem, people would have the time to learn them and eventually we could see a common language developing from bits of all.</li><li>Euthanasia centres would be accepted. Who wants to live a long and unhappy life?</li><li>We would run out of fossil fuels and resort to biotechnology, nanotechnology and asteroid mining to replace them. Biofuels from products such as corn would prove to be a dead end since the raw materials would be needed to produce food. Algae farming would become important.</li><li>What about religion? Do you think it would last through 1729 years of life?</li></ul><div style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.496094); font-family: 'Adobe Garamond Pro'; font-size: 23px; text-align: left; text-shadow: rgb(0, 191, 255) 0.02em 0.01em 0em;">Is it possible? According to Aubrey de Grey&nbsp;<a href="http://www.ted.com/talks/aubrey_de_grey_says_we_can_avoid_aging.html" target="_blank">the first person to live to 1,000 is probably alive now</a>. How would this come about? Well reading my earlier blog post&nbsp;<a href="http://avestedinterest.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/bio-terrorism-and-cure-for-common-cold.html" target="_blank">Bio-terrorism and the cure for the common cold</a>&nbsp;might give you a clue but if you want the details, you'll have to read our books.</div>John Chapmanhttps://plus.google.com/104152408681286149443noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1329265741756814847.post-53307836659126989172012-02-04T04:27:00.001+00:002013-03-10T04:56:39.949+00:00Did I just get conned by Vista-Print?<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This post is aimed mostly at writers and artists of all sorts.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-hpVhJNWoGTY/Tyyevb-jWAI/AAAAAAAAAVk/1IrW0k7DIyM/s1600/VistaPrintAdvert.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="154" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-hpVhJNWoGTY/Tyyevb-jWAI/AAAAAAAAAVk/1IrW0k7DIyM/s320/VistaPrintAdvert.png" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.vistaprint.co.uk/business-cards-allstyles.aspx" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">VistaPrint's Website advert.</span></a></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'm sure you've seen the adverts from VistaPrint - '250 cards for £2.00'. Doesn't seem a bad deal does it? It got me thinking - I could use something like that to design small promotional cards to help promote the 'A Vested Interest' books.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Well I bit and followed through to the design stage.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A few minutes work produced a design for the card. We decided to use the book cover image from book 4 of the A Vested Interest series - Stones, Stars and Solutions. On it we would put the introduction text from our book website and the website URL. Here's the result:</span><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jSnc5iasoHM/TyyppAbjilI/AAAAAAAAAVs/iP4hIBfvumQ/s1600/avicardfront.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="225" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jSnc5iasoHM/TyyppAbjilI/AAAAAAAAAVs/iP4hIBfvumQ/s400/avicardfront.png" width="400" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Not bad for £2.00 we thought. We'll be able to give them out and leave them strategically around Hexham, where I live in England. Then we discovered we could print on the other side and a new design was produced with book names, the DNA image from out original A Vested Interest cover and website and contact information. Here's the reverse side:</span><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-GWKht0pMJLQ/TyyrLWEtNAI/AAAAAAAAAV0/DUyUIUU75jw/s1600/avicardrear.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="226" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-GWKht0pMJLQ/TyyrLWEtNAI/AAAAAAAAAV0/DUyUIUU75jw/s400/avicardrear.png" width="400" /></span></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Of course there was an extra charge for printing the reverse, £9.99 and that made it seem silly to just order 250 cards. I ordered 1,500 which increased the original £2.00 to £11.00. Still seemed reasonable - £21 for 1,500 cards to my own personal design.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Happy with my work I went on to the next step and at that point found I would be paying a little more.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"></div><ul><li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1,500 cards &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; £11.00</span></li><li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Printing the rear &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; £ 9.99</span></li><li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Personalised image (front) &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;£ 3.49</span></li><li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">personalised image (back) &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; £ 3.49</span></li></ul><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The total was now £27.97 a bit more than £2.00 but I was buying 1,500 not 250.</span><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Hey- there was a special offer on available to me. I could get an extra 500 cards for just £2.24 extra with standard shipping. I got the extra 500 cards but shipping? You mean that's NOT included? On to the next step.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"></div><ul><li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Shipping offered several options. I chose the slowest 21 day shipping £6.07</span></li><li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Tax was added at this point £7.26</span></li></ul><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My bill was now £43.54&nbsp;</span><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Whatever happened to that £2.00? Did I just get hustled?</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Moreover, could I have gone to my local print shop with my design and got my 2,000 cards a lot quicker for less?</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Update 23 Feb 2012</b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Well the cards finally arrived today. Pretty mediocre quality. You'd need a great deal of imagination to see the stars on the background. I think too that if I was designing them again I'd leave a plain white area big enough to write a brief note or telephone number.</span></div>John Chapmanhttps://plus.google.com/104152408681286149443noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1329265741756814847.post-73059584915898735052012-01-23T19:00:00.000+00:002012-01-27T04:07:50.238+00:00Blog Hop Contest!<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">So what is a Blog hop contest? </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It's a competition amongst writers to write a short section of prose using the picture below as inspiration. You can write a poem, a song or flash fiction but must keep it to 300 words or less. More details at&nbsp;<a href="http://anonymouslegacy.blogspot.com/2012/01/blog-hop-contest.html">http://anonymouslegacy.blogspot.com/2012/01/blog-hop-contest.html</a></span><br /><br />So here's my entry:<br /><div style="border-style: groove; border: thin; padding: 5;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lvc2v4BZfb1qzwhyzo1_500.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lvc2v4BZfb1qzwhyzo1_500.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It was deathly quiet. Wein woke suddenly finding himself lying on his back in a forest. He hadn’t a clue how he’d got there. The last thing he remembered was drinking with Gary.<o:p></o:p></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">&nbsp;Wait – maybe that was it? He examined his surroundings carefully. The woodland was quite open with tall straight trees. He&nbsp;couldn't&nbsp;see far though the mist though. The ground was covered with small white flowers; he&nbsp;didn't&nbsp;recognise them but his nose told him ‘wild garlic’.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It was probably early morning since there was a chill in the air. There was nothing really odd except for that complete silence and the single light bulb hanging high amongst the trees.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A light bulb? In the middle of woodland? What was it hanging from? He could only make out a cable disappearing in the mist. He dusted off the forest detritus from his jeans. He was wearing the same T-shirt as he wore last night. He shivered, goosebumps on his arms. He wanted to examine the flowers and trees to see if they were real but needed warmth. Time to find a way out.<o:p></o:p></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">He started walking away from the light, since he assumed that would be in the middle – if that’s where he was.<o:p></o:p></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">After walking about fifty paces he stopped and looked back. No tracks through the flowers and that light bulb was still in the same position relative to him. If it wasn’t for the trees changing positions slightly, he didn’t seem to have moved.<o:p></o:p></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">He dropped to his knees and examined the flowers. They seemed real, the ground wasn’t damp though. He examined a tree and broke off some bark. It crumbled to dust in his fingers. He smiled.<o:p></o:p></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“OK Gary. You win. You can let me out the virtual reality room now.”</span></div><o:p></o:p><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><script type="text/javascript"> document.write('<script type="text/javascript" src=http://www.inlinkz.com/cs.php?id=116954&' + new Date().getTime() + '"><\/script>'); </script></span><br /><hr /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In case you're interested Wein and Gary are characters who I borrowed from our 'A Vested Interest' series.&nbsp;</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Wein is an electronics&nbsp;</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">technician</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">&nbsp;with an interest in nanotechnology. Gary is a doctor at the cutting edge of medical research.&nbsp;</span></div>John Chapmanhttps://plus.google.com/104152408681286149443noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1329265741756814847.post-4875755790208378912011-12-25T02:00:00.000+00:002012-10-11T04:06:19.596+01:00Twenty ways to get an instant agent rejection<br /><div style="border-bottom: solid #95B3D7 1.0pt; border: none; mso-border-bottom-alt: solid #95B3D7 .5pt; mso-element: para-border-div; padding: 0cm 0cm 1.0pt 0cm;"><span style="font-size: 19px;"><b><br /></b></span> </div><div class="Publisher" style="margin-left: 50.2pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">1.<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>Send a three or more page query letter.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="Publisher" style="margin-left: 50.2pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">2.<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>Start your book with a flashback.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="Publisher" style="margin-left: 50.2pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">3.<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>Start with a prologue (Yes - some experienced authors getting away with it).<o:p></o:p></div><div class="Publisher" style="margin-left: 50.2pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">4.<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>Get someone to write the query letter on your behalf.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="Publisher" style="margin-left: 50.2pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">5.<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>Confuse some common words - of/off, to/too, there/their/they're, past/passed, allay/ally, cash/cache, accept/except, bate/bait, sight/cite/site.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="Publisher" style="margin-left: 50.2pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">6.<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>Make lots of spelling mistakes and typos.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="Publisher" style="margin-left: 50.2pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">7.<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>Handwrite your query.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="Publisher" style="margin-left: 50.2pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">8.<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>Use lots of redundant expressions like. 'dark black', 'fiction novel', 'loud shriek' (quiet shriek anyone?)<o:p></o:p></div><div class="Publisher" style="margin-left: 50.2pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">9.<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>Send your query as an email attachment.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="Publisher" style="margin-left: 50.2pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">10.<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">&nbsp; </span>Beg an agent to accept your work.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="Publisher" style="margin-left: 50.2pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">11.<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">&nbsp; </span>Mention how many times you’ve been rejected by agents.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="Publisher" style="margin-left: 50.2pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">12.<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">&nbsp; </span>Tell the agent how much your grandmother/aunt loves your book.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="Publisher" style="margin-left: 50.2pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">13.<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">&nbsp; </span>Start by moaning about the quality of other books being written.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="Publisher" style="margin-left: 50.2pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">14.<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">&nbsp; </span>Submit work which isn't finished.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="Publisher" style="margin-left: 50.2pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">15.<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">&nbsp; </span>Lie to an agent. E.g. "Enclosed is the work you requested...."<o:p></o:p></div><div class="Publisher" style="margin-left: 50.2pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">16.<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">&nbsp; </span>Don't include a stamped, self-addressed envelope for the reply.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="Publisher" style="margin-left: 50.2pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">17.<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">&nbsp; </span>Use another author's well known character or plot. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="Publisher" style="margin-left: 50.2pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">18.<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">&nbsp; </span>Include lots of profanity on the first pages.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="Publisher" style="margin-left: 50.2pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">19.<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">&nbsp; </span>Submit work less than 40,000 words long.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="Publisher" style="margin-left: 50.2pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">20.<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">&nbsp; </span>Submit a first novel of more than 120,000 words.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="Publisher" style="margin-left: 50.2pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;"><br /></div><div class="Publisher" style="margin-left: 50.2pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;"><br /></div><div class="Publisher" style="margin-left: 50.2pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">From my e-book "An illustrated guide to getting published" Get it free at <a href="http://www.jaydax.co.uk/downloads.htm">http://www.jaydax.co.uk/downloads.htm</a>&nbsp;(or buy it at Amazon). There's a new version being produced which includes publishing at Smashwords and other places.</div>John Chapmanhttps://plus.google.com/104152408681286149443noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1329265741756814847.post-37616084924249573402011-12-21T09:33:00.000+00:002016-09-15T14:16:27.112+01:00Write and publish a book in a week?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bNOKAyJPUqw/TvGWks_ZxuI/AAAAAAAAATI/EHjypMzR41k/s1600/eBookCover600x800.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bNOKAyJPUqw/TvGWks_ZxuI/AAAAAAAAATI/EHjypMzR41k/s320/eBookCover600x800.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><h4> <span style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;">You can download the second edition of this book for free at &nbsp;<a href="http://www.jaydax.co.uk/downloads.htm">http://www.jaydax.co.uk/ downloads.htm</a>&nbsp;or get it at Amazon for 77p / $0.99<br /><a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/So-youve-written-book-ebook/dp/B006OI3VAS/ref=zg_bs_158279011_5" target="_blank">UK link</a> | <a href="http://www.amazon.com/So-youve-written-book-ebook/dp/B006OI3VAS/ref=zg_bs_158279011_5" target="_blank">US link</a></span></h4>A few months ago I set myself the task of writing and publishing a book in just one week. I completed it within seven days and made the book available at Amazon. Free at the time! &nbsp;The print version is in full colour but has been withdrawn until edition 3 is available.<br /><br />So what did I write about? Simple. I put together an illustrated guide to getting published both in print and in e-book format. It wasn't a huge work so I added notes on editing your book, getting an agent, cover creation and promoting the finished work.<br /><br />Now I'm getting quite familiar with this process, after all I have produced ten books in the '<a href="http://www.avestedinterest.info/">A Vested Interest</a>' series. I did make some new discoveries along the way though which naturally - I included in the book.<br /><br />The major difference I found was, because this is a non-fiction book, that I had to include lots of screenshot graphics. Getting them right to display on the 600 x 800, 16 shades of grey screen of a Kindle took quite a bit of work because I also wanted them to display in colour on Android readers. The result was a compromise.<br /><br />Here's the new things I found out:<br /><br /><ul><li>It's quite easy to put links to a different area of a book.</li><li>Click a&nbsp;hyper-link&nbsp;in an e-book on the Kindle and it will open that page in the Kindle browser.</li><li>You can't really do a satisfactory drop capital on a basic Kindle although it's a lot easier now that 'styles' are recognised.</li><li>You can't left or right align a graphic other than on the current line.</li><li>MS Word has an absolute limit of 220dpi (dots per inch). Book publishers recommend 300 dpi. You can tell MS Word not to compress graphics but if you output the file as pdf it forgets what you told it.</li><li>You can print from Word to a pdf file where graphics are NOT compressed.&nbsp;</li><li>If you put a screen capture from OneNote into Word it gets saved as 199dpi. The answer is to replace these with hi-resolution graphics later.</li><li>If you save a bulleted list from Word as a 'Web page, Filtered' file Word will not use the correct HTML but will use a bullet character (Alt 0149) and spacing. This looks stupid on a Kindle. I find the answer is to use the 'calibre' ebook management program to create an epub file and submit that to Amazon.</li><li>The Create Space Cover Designer looks very basic at first but is surprisingly versatile.</li><li>Mobi (Kindle) files are almost twice the size of epub (Sony/Nook) files.</li><li>Calibre makes the job of creating a multi-level contents page very easy.</li></ul><div>Want free author help items? Try&nbsp;<a href="http://www.jaydax.co.uk/downloads.htm">http://www.jaydax.co.uk/downloads.htm</a>&nbsp;There are other freebies there too.</div><br /><br /><br />John Chapmanhttps://plus.google.com/104152408681286149443noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1329265741756814847.post-54356335813796392792011-11-18T01:17:00.001+00:002012-07-24T18:09:53.782+01:00A plea to ebook users everywhere (but especially in the UK)<br />Every person who either reads, writes or publishes in the UK should know this:<br /><br /><ul><li>The UK government has a declared intention of reducing carbon emissions.</li><li>The publication of paper books in the UK leads to almost a billion tonnes of carbon emissions each year. Newspapers and magazines each produce more than this.</li><li>Production and sale of an e-book involves just 3% of the carbon emissions produced by a paper version.</li></ul><br /><a href="http://ebookreadersreview.leverageworks.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Amazon-Kindle-31.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://ebookreadersreview.leverageworks.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Amazon-Kindle-31.jpg" width="193" /></a>E-books make far more sense in today's world. It takes an enormous amount of energy to cut down and transport trees. It takes more energy to produce the paper, transport it, print it and distribute it. We have to use energy to travel to the shop and buy books, magazines and newspapers and then we have to carry them around to read them. When we've finished with them it takes more energy to dispose of them.<br /><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-a2wfQoe1FUo/UA7U5rucjyI/AAAAAAAAAXs/63o5NP8UUXs/s1600/2836541824_76961d3808.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-a2wfQoe1FUo/UA7U5rucjyI/AAAAAAAAAXs/63o5NP8UUXs/s200/2836541824_76961d3808.jpg" width="200" /></a><br />If you were a student which would you prefer to carry - six textbooks or a Kindle? If you like to read on holiday how about carrying an entire library with you? You can do that with an e-book reader.<br /><br />E-books make environmental sense <b><i>yet</i></b>:<br /><br />The government charges the full rate of VAT on the sale of e-books and e-zines but no VAT on paper books, newspapers or magazines. They say VAT is charged on e-books because 'it's a service.' Apparently the work of the printing industry in making and distributing the words of writers is not.<br /><br /><a href="http://du4wv5tbdc6z7.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/ipad-book-reading-240x165.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://du4wv5tbdc6z7.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/ipad-book-reading-240x165.jpg" /></a>Every author in the world should be kicking up a fuss about this nonsense. It makes e-books in the UK 20% more expensive and holds back the industry. At a time when students need to cut back on their expenses, the government is making it cost them more if they choose to buy e-books.<br /><br />Perhaps the government needs the extra tax income? Well authors earn more from e-book sales than from paper books; that means they will recoup the lost VAT in more income tax.<br /><br /><a href="http://techbaguette.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/government.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="154" src="http://techbaguette.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/government.jpg" width="200" /></a>Every author should be pressing the UK government to remove the ridiculous tax on e-books. Let's bring down the cost to our readers, save those dwindling fossil fuels and at the same time help ourselves.<br /><br />What can you do? There's an e-petition which we should be promoting about VAT on e-books. Please -<br /><br /><ul><li>mention the e-petition link below on your blogs</li><li>post it on Twitter</li><li>post it on other social media sites.&nbsp;</li><li>Consider adding a note about it somewhere in your books.&nbsp;</li><li>Talk to people about it.&nbsp;</li><li>Tweet this post It's URL is&nbsp; <a href="http://avestedinterest.blogspot.co.uk/2011/11/plea-to-authors-and-readers-everywhere.html">http://avestedinterest.blogspot.co.uk/2011/11/plea-to-authors-and-readers-everywhere.html</a></li><li>If you found out about this post from a Tweet - Retweet it.</li></ul><br />Do everything possible to get this petition to the 100,000 signatures level - the point at which it MUST be debated in Parliament. Even if you are not a UK author this still affects your UK sales.<br /><br /><b>We need to draw attention to this!</b><br /><br />Petition to request the abolition of VAT on e-books <a href="http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/114">http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/114</a>John Chapmanhttps://plus.google.com/104152408681286149443noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1329265741756814847.post-91821779647707798112011-11-06T22:28:00.000+00:002013-03-10T04:15:31.112+00:00Cover to Cover - How we produced the covers for our book seriesIf you search the Internet you'll find lots of advice on how to write and also lots about how to get published. Up to now the route has always been:<br /><ul><li><span style="background-color: transparent;">write the book</span></li><li><span style="background-color: transparent;">edit it</span></li><li><span style="background-color: transparent;">submit it to an agent</span></li><ul><li><span style="background-color: transparent;">get rejected</span></li><li><span style="background-color: transparent;">submit to another agent</span></li><li><span style="background-color: transparent;">get rejected</span></li><li><span style="background-color: transparent;">revise the book</span></li><li><span style="background-color: transparent;">repeat 'submit to an agent</span></li></ul><li><span style="background-color: transparent;">Either give up or self publish&nbsp;</span>or, if you are one of the lucky few, negotiate a contract</li><li><span style="background-color: transparent;">Agent submits to a publisher.... and so on</span></li></ul><span style="background-color: transparent;">Now however E-books have made it possible for many new authors to publish work that would otherwise end in agents and publisher's slush piles. You can test the water by releasing your book as an e-book,&nbsp;publicize it yourself (For how to do that read John Locke's excellent book '<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0056BMK6K/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=jaydax08&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=217145&amp;creative=399373&amp;creativeASIN=B0056BMK6K">How I Sold 1 Million...</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaydax08&amp;l=as2&amp;o=1&amp;a=B0056BMK6K&amp;camp=217145&amp;creative=399373" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />') and then, if there's a demand, produce a paper copy. I wrote an e-book on the process of producing both the paper copy and the e-book version. You can either buy it at Amazon or get it free <a href="http://www.jaydax.co.uk/downloads.htm" target="_blank">here</a>.</span><br /><div><span style="background-color: transparent;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="background-color: transparent;">Somewhere along the line though you'll need a book cover and there the advice stops. Granted there are websites which offer template solutions but most of them leave a lot to be desired and frankly - a book <i>is</i> judged by it's cover.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: transparent;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="background-color: transparent;">We've written and published five books so far in our&nbsp;<a href="http://www.avestedinterest.info/">A Vested Interest</a>&nbsp;series and in the hope that our experience will help, here's what was involved in designing the covers.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: transparent;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="background-color: transparent;"><b><a href="http://amzn.to/V58XSY" target="_blank">Book 1 - A Vested Interest</a></b></span></div><div><span style="background-color: transparent;">We wanted the cover of this book to reflect what the story was about so we had to include:</span></div><div><ul><li>DNA to indicate this was about medical science</li><li>A semi-transparent mechanical bug to show that technology was involved</li><li>A castle to represent the location Langston Castle in the book and to show there was a bit of history involved</li><li>An old mine tunnel to represent the secret underground base</li></ul>Now Shelia and I are not bad at using graphics programs - we picked up that skill when we spent three years as illegal immigrants in Canada, supporting ourselves by building websites. So we took some pictures using a very basic digital camera and started putting together a cover. The actual process I will detail later but here's the result:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-rb191UB5SE0/TrXr3hE51uI/AAAAAAAAARA/BYNKcYDrrrE/s1600/AVestedInterestBookCoverSmallcopy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="443" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-rb191UB5SE0/TrXr3hE51uI/AAAAAAAAARA/BYNKcYDrrrE/s640/AVestedInterestBookCoverSmallcopy.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">The original background image was a picture I took of <a href="http://www.jaydax.co.uk/showcase/panorama/blackett_level/index.htm">Blackett Level near Allendale</a>, Northumberland. It was a little overpowering so I faded it out by putting a semi-transparent white layer over the top. Into that I merged a picture I took of Langley Castle and that DNA picture. The 'bug' was inspired by those in the film 'The Day the Earth Stood Still'. On the e-book copy we moved that to the other side. Later we added the Triplet family coat of arms to help identify the book as part of a series.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="http://amzn.to/QTkeKA"><strong>Book 2 - Dark Secrets</strong></a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaydax08&amp;l=as2&amp;o=1&amp;a=B004SP6N3Q&amp;camp=217145&amp;creative=399373" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">The plot of this book involved an&nbsp;unpleasant&nbsp;secret buried in the family for almost a thousand years. The secret was revealed in an old diary. To reflect this we created a cover looking like an old book and featuring the coat of arms of the Triplet family. The old book was to be dark&nbsp;colored&nbsp;to reflect the title but when we got the first proof back from the publishers it was almost black. The final version was a lot lighter. For the old book I scanned an old copy I have of Uncle Tom's Cabin and then removed the text. With the aid of my son Adam we created a 'coat of arms' and then turned it and the book cover text gold.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-GF3V3dGWXTA/Trbg_iM1FqI/AAAAAAAAARI/vZTKQE-y1mk/s1600/DarkSecretsfull.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="460" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-GF3V3dGWXTA/Trbg_iM1FqI/AAAAAAAAARI/vZTKQE-y1mk/s640/DarkSecretsfull.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div>On this one we didn't put the coat of arms on the spine since it was already on the front cover and the spine is much narrower.<br /><br /><b><a href="http://amzn.to/ST2ps2">Book 3 - No Secrets</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaydax08&amp;l=as2&amp;o=1&amp;a=B00537SFBG&amp;camp=217145&amp;creative=399373" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" /></b><br />No Secrets was very much a continuation of Dark Secrets so we decided to use the same layout. Obviously we couldn't use the same image on the front so chose a Celtic knot instead,&nbsp;symbolizing&nbsp;eternity. Of all the covers it's the one we are least happy with and it may change.<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-BQtT0WXI9x0/TrbkAvjiAUI/AAAAAAAAARY/eIdX7zF1OIs/s1600/NoSecretsCoverFull.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="451" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-BQtT0WXI9x0/TrbkAvjiAUI/AAAAAAAAARY/eIdX7zF1OIs/s640/NoSecretsCoverFull.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><b><a href="http://amzn.to/ST39xk">Book 4 - Stones, Stars and Solutions</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaydax08&amp;l=as2&amp;o=1&amp;a=B005DJ0TO0&amp;camp=217145&amp;creative=399373" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" /></b><br />In this book the Triplets travel the world visiting pyramids and other locations while following clues left in an ancient document. One of the locations is Death Valley, another is the Mayan pyramid at Chichen Itza, Mexico. We started with a black and white picture of Death Valley which we colored dark blue. To that we added the pyramid viewed through a 'window' on the front cover and framed in vegetation from the jungle in Mexico. On the back we added our idea of the power mechanism revealed at the end of the book.<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-eE6jE8aw4I8/TrbpfhqgLBI/AAAAAAAAARg/b1ji45wj6d4/s1600/bluecoverfull.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="435" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-eE6jE8aw4I8/TrbpfhqgLBI/AAAAAAAAARg/b1ji45wj6d4/s640/bluecoverfull.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>People liked this cover so much they asked if they could use it as a screen background. We obliged with a version without the text, coat of arms or vegetation. Find it <a href="http://www.jaydax.co.uk/downloads/ScreenBackgrounds.htm">here</a>.<br /><br /><b><a href="http://amzn.to/X1WGj0">Book 5 - Leap of Faith</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaydax08&amp;l=as2&amp;o=1&amp;a=B005OBMQN4&amp;camp=217145&amp;creative=399373" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" /></b><br />In this book there's a location Spirit Canyon in Arkansas. It was one of the places mentioned in Stones, Stars and Solutions and also appeared in No Secrets. Spirit Canyon features a stone cabin which you can only get to through a cave and a waterfall. We wanted to show this place on the cover. The problem is that though we know it's location, the actual place doesn't exist so we had to make it with bits and pieces of other pictures.<br />For a book cover you need high resolution pictures because the file you send to a printer is 5,700 by 3,900 pixels in size although the image I need is 3,510 by 2470 pixels. I start with a template document from the printer. It's actual size depends on the size and thickness of the book. If you use CreateSpace as your publisher this template is worked out for you when you upload the book contents. It can be a little difficult to find but it's there.<br /><br />Here's what we started with:<br /><br /><ul><li>a picture of a log cabin in Texas</li><li>A cave in Arkansas</li><li>A woodland picture in Arkansas</li><li>A stone cottage near where we lived</li><li>A picture taken inside the old lead mine at Swinhope Moor, England</li><li>a blue eye</li></ul><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;...and here's what we ended up with</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-IKzbiXJVH8o/Trb6EePOtaI/AAAAAAAAASY/CN5FaqmkRac/s1600/SpiritCanyon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="360" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-IKzbiXJVH8o/Trb6EePOtaI/AAAAAAAAASY/CN5FaqmkRac/s640/SpiritCanyon.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">In case you wonder, here's where the joins are...</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_qyJpoCeIKg/Trb6qAMJsjI/AAAAAAAAASg/p2ODZ5ePb3Y/s1600/SpiritCanyon2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_qyJpoCeIKg/Trb6qAMJsjI/AAAAAAAAASg/p2ODZ5ePb3Y/s320/SpiritCanyon2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Now this picture is a little busy for a book cover and it's not perfect. I chose to add text with a semi transparent background to hide the imperfections.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ukw8D26EvhM/Trb8dc6VP5I/AAAAAAAAASo/lKOagxcWjME/s1600/Full-leapoffaithcover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="450" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ukw8D26EvhM/Trb8dc6VP5I/AAAAAAAAASo/lKOagxcWjME/s640/Full-leapoffaithcover.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Making a cover like this isn't hard. You just need a computer with lots of memory and a decent painting application which can use layers, masks, feathering and&nbsp;&nbsp;b<em style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: small; font-style: normal; line-height: 16px; text-align: -webkit-auto;">ézier</em>&nbsp;text. The industry standard program is PhotoShop, but there are others such as Corel PaintShop Pro or The Gimp which can do the job and are much less expensive. There are lots of tutorials available on the web explaining exactly how to merge images so I don't plan on explaining this here.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">&nbsp;I'm still not happy with the front and spine text on the cover since although it's fine on a printed book it fails to stand out in the smaller versions used for e-books and at Amazon. The spine text could be made clearer by turning it through 90 degrees but I, for one, hate having to turn my head sideways to read the text on book spines. I'm also a little&nbsp;dubious&nbsp;of the base of the stone cabin which doesn't quite fit on the ground correctly. I probably need to add some weeds here to cover the join.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Now - I've explained how we chose the covers. What are your thoughts? Which cover do you like the best and which do you think we should change?</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><h3>Update April 2012</h3><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">We've now added an&nbsp;additional&nbsp;book '<a href="http://amzn.to/XrWrRp">Regret and Retribution</a>'. In this book some of the action occurs on the top of a mountain in Arizona where the characters come under attack by a hostile alien.&nbsp;Fortunately, the alien &nbsp;takes human or animal form, so I didn't have to come up with what he/she looks like. I used a modified sky scene from Death valley (used already in Stones, Stars and Solutions) and to that added a mountain top scene. The actual mountain used was Helvellyn, a mountain of England's Lake District. In fact I used it twice, once in the background and again, mirrored and stretched in the foreground. On the rear mountain I superimposed a modified picture of&nbsp;&nbsp;a galaxy. The whole thing was darkened and a faint blue glow was added at the edge of the foreground mountain.. Finally I added the cover text. The trick here is to make sure that it's readable even at a thumbnail size used on Amazon's website. Here's the result:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-J-op4CqvIK0/T5FU63O0M8I/AAAAAAAAAXQ/yfBzRYiNl1U/s1600/RandRcoverCropped.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="448" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-J-op4CqvIK0/T5FU63O0M8I/AAAAAAAAAXQ/yfBzRYiNl1U/s640/RandRcoverCropped.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><h3>Update July 2012</h3><a href="http://amzn.to/X1X40I">Consequences</a> was released at the end of July 2012. It's cover shows a moment when Donna was released from a 'mindstorm'. It's dusk, raining hard and misty. The&nbsp;helicopter&nbsp;searching for her is driving the rain and Donna holds her hair to prevent it lashing her eyes. She spots something on the ground and reaches for it. We used the same mountain top but added storm clouds. The figure of the woman caused a few problems, it's actually made up of four different images. She's making an unusual movement - reaching with her left arm over her right knee. I would have swapped arms but Shelia, who has long hair, told me 'Once you have your wet hair in a strong wind under control, you don't risk letting go.'<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Gi8u-tS3_aw/USZGiaG5fVI/AAAAAAAABDc/5q2q3wOpECY/s1600/Consequencescover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="450" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Gi8u-tS3_aw/USZGiaG5fVI/AAAAAAAABDc/5q2q3wOpECY/s640/Consequencescover.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><h3>Update November 2012</h3><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Here's our most recent book cover for 'Ashes to Ashes'. We start this book with the aftermath of an alien&nbsp;possessed woman running wild in the mine complex. Death plays a big part in this book at it's beginning and that is reflected in it's cover</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Here's just the front of the book:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-4yWhvTeck_E/USZAuj442jI/AAAAAAAABDU/fl2hLBlZBAI/s1600/AshestoAshesEbook.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-4yWhvTeck_E/USZAuj442jI/AAAAAAAABDU/fl2hLBlZBAI/s640/AshestoAshesEbook.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div></div>John Chapmanhttps://plus.google.com/104152408681286149443noreply@blogger.com0